


Exiled

by ICanStopAnytime



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Angst, Coming of Age, F/M, Family, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-02-22 09:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 53,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13164333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ICanStopAnytime/pseuds/ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Coach Taylor can't handle his own child anymore.





	1. Chapter 1

Coach Taylor stirred at 12:20 AM and turned in bed to draw his wife back against his chest. He felt blindly in front of himself, but his arm landed only on the uninhabited mattress. It was another few seconds of grasping for her imaginary form before he was awake enough to remember she was dead.

The pain swelled like a wave rising from the pit of his stomach to his heart, just as it had that first moment of realization, a little over a year ago, when he'd gotten the late night call from the hospital.

The phone was ringing now too.

He rolled again to his left and banged about the nightstand until he had it in his hand. He fought the urge to slam it down and instead murmured a sleepy, aching "Hello?"

"Coach Taylor?"

"Yes."

"This is Sheriff Chavez."

"Hey, Raul. It's late." He closed his eyes. He had a faint idea of what was coming, but he prayed it wasn't the case.

"Yeah…uh…I've got your kid down here. In the drunk tank. Again."

"I'll be right down."

Coach Taylor rubbed the sleep dust from his eyes as he cranked his Ford pick-up to a start. He adjusted his black coach's cap up and down on his forehead and tried to blink the road into focus as he drove. When he walked into the station, he went straight to the Sheriff's desk. "You got the paperwork for me?"

"Look…uh…I can't just give him a slap on the wrist this time. I know y'all had a big win tonight, and some of the other boys were drinking, too."

"I realize this is the third time you've picked him up for public intoxication. And I assure you I will come down hard on him. I will – "

"- It wasn't just public intoxication this time, Coach. He was driving."

"What? I took away his keys!"

"He was driving Billy Joe's car. But that's not the main problem. He blew 0.2%."

"Jesus Christ," Coach Taylor muttered. "That high?"

"They were getting into Bobby Vee's moonshine."

"Was there an accident?"

"No one was hurt, thank God, but he was all over the road and tried to escape me through a cotton field. Did some damage. Joe McKinney is going to want some compensation, I'm sure."

"Jesus," Coach Taylor muttered again.

"You can post bail tonight, but he's going to have to come back for his court date. This is his first DUI, and if you get Luis Rodriguez to represent him, he'll get off easy with a plea bargain. Probably just have to take antiabuse and get his driver's license revoked for six months. He's a juvenile, so his record will be sealed."

Coach Taylor took in a deep, shaky breath. "What if I leave him for a night?"

The Sheriff shook his head. "Might send a message, but, honest to God, Coach, I think he's going to need something more than a little bit of tough love here."

Coach Taylor ripped off his hat and dug his hand into his hair. "I don't know what I'm doing here, Raul, raising this boy alone like this."

"Maybe you need to get yourself a wife."

"I can't even begin to think about that right now."

"Well you need help. So, you bailing him out tonight or not?"

He did bail the boy out, and when they were sitting in his truck, with the sixteen year old partly sobered up and rocking a little in the passenger's seat beside him, Coach Taylor slammed his fist against the dashboard three times, hard, because he didn't want to slam it into his son. "God dammnit, Eric!" he screamed, "Goddammint! What the HELL is wrong with you?"

"I was just…we were just…"

"You're an embarrassment to the Taylor name. You're an embarrassment to your team. I can't keep covering your tracks for you. I won't keep doing it. I know I haven't been the best father this past year, but I don't know what I've done to deserve this!"

Eric gritted his teeth and stared outside the windshield.

"I'm pulling you from the team."

"What? We've got play-offs in three weeks!"

"Son, you're in real trouble this time. You're going to trial."

"Dad, you can't win without me."

It was true. He wasn't sure they could. Eric was good, a junior who was the star quarterback of that team. His second string, though already a senior, wasn't anywhere near Eric's ability.

"And if you pull me now, I won't get that scholarship UT's been dangling in front of my nose!"

"I know that. But if you get your head on straight and keep your record clean and come back and play for me again next year, you'll have a chance to earn another one." Hell, Eric could probably make it all the way to the NFL if he didn't kill himself or end up in jail before then.

"How can you even consider pulling me?"

"Son," Coach Taylor said, "it's time I took away football. Time I took away something you actually give a shit about, because you don't seem to give a shit about much else!"

"Me? You're the one who cares about it! It's you're whole goddamn life! This entire season you've made me get up at 5 AM to run plays."

He had, it was true, but mostly because he'd been awake since 3 AM every day. He'd wanted the company. He hadn't slept more than 4.5 a day since she died. He'd get up early in the morning and try to pray, but there would be no words. He'd tried to read, but the lines would blur. He'd run in the morning, before the sun rose, when it was still cool, his breath making faint clouds in the early November air, and finally, he'd pound on Eric's door shouting, "Hut, hut! Time to get up! Got to run those plays! Got to run those plays!"

"And you make me run those plays over and over again. I can never do them good enough for you!"

Coach Taylor did, it was true, make Eric run those plays a few too many times, perhaps, but coaching was something he was good at. Improving Eric's game was something he could  _do_. It was something he could  _control_. It was  _something_. "That's not true, son," he lied. "You know that's not true. I just want you to achieve your best."

Eric shook his head. "Fine. Go ahead and take me off the team. Watch it go down like a, like a…"

"Too drunk to think of a good simile?"

"See, nothing is ever good enough for you!"

"Eric, you're right. Your C- average is not good enough for me! Getting drunk in public and being hauled in to the station is not good enough for me! You risking the lives of two of your friends because you got behind the wheel of a car drunk off your ass is not good enough for me!"

He cranked the engine on. He drove in silence all the way to the house, but when they were in the carport, and the engine was off, he spoke, slowly and deliberately. "I can't do this anymore."

"Do what?" Eric asked.

"I don't know what to do with you. I know I haven't done a good job of raising you alone this past year. I know that." Coach Taylor sighed. "I can't handle you." He glanced at Eric. The boy's nostril flared. It looked like he was fighting back tears. "Your mother would have…she would have…This never would have happened, if she were alive. And I just can't do it by myself anymore." He pulled the keys out of the ignition. They jangled loudly. "I'll help you get off easy on the drunk driving charges. I'll get you a damn good lawyer. After you've had your court date, I'm sending you to live with your grandfather for the rest of your junior year and most of the summer. You can come back for summer training in August. Repeat your junior year next year. Pull up those grades."

"What? Send me where?"

"To live with your Grandfather Maddox. Your mother's father." Warren Maddox had not approved of Deacon Taylor eloping with his daughter when she was just a ripe eighteen, especially given that Deacon himself was already twenty at the time and had been living under the old man's roof and in his trust. Coach Taylor's relationship with his father-in-law had been somewhat strained ever since. "He's in Weslaco now."

"Where the fuck is Weslaco?"

Coach Taylor knew he should correct the boy for swearing. There was a time he would have. There was a time Eric wouldn't even have  _considered_  swearing in his presence. That time was gone, and he was too weary to correct him now. He was just so tired. That was the worst thing about her death – not the grief that ebbed and flowed like a tide pulling back and rolling in, but the sheer tiredness. The goddamn tiredness. He was just so tired all the time, even when he was running, even when he was yelling, even when he was on that field, bringing his boys to victory, even when he was doing the thing he loved most in this world – most besides  _her_. "It's…it's near Brownsville," he said, and said it through his teeth, so he wouldn't cry. He looked to his left, at the kitchen door, so Eric wouldn't see the wetness in his eyes either.

Coach Taylor didn't know exactly when everything had fallen apart, when Eric had completely stopped saying "yes, sir" and "no, sir," when he'd started drinking, when he'd let his grades slip. It was sometime after his mother died, of course, but he couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it had started, because, well, the truth was, he hadn't been paying attention to his son, except when they were playing football, and then he wasn't paying attention to his son so much as paying attention to his plays, his form, his runs. Maybe it was because the boy looked to damn much like  _her_ , or maybe it was because he himself was a shit father and his wife had been the only one holding the family together…he didn't know. He just knew he was failing his son, and if he couldn't give the boy what he needed, someone else had to.

"That's on the border! That's at least 400 miles away!" Eric said, and Coach Taylor couldn't tell if it was fear or anger or sadness in his voice, or maybe all three at once, multiplying one another. "And I've seen Grandpa Maddox….like…three times in my entire life. Why would you….why would you send me away? Send me to live with him?"

"Because that's what he does on his ranch, your grandfather. He helps troubled teenagers."

"So that's what I am to you? A troubled kid you need to pawn off on some ranch?"

"Eric, do you think you  _aren't_  troubled?"

"Clearly, I'm  _in_  trouble, anyway."

"I'm sorry, son, but I don't know what else to do." He threw his shoulder against the truck door. Eric didn't get out.

Coach Taylor left the porch light on, and the kitchen door unlocked, and his son just sitting there, staring through the windshield. He crawled back into his too-big bed and pulled a pillow to himself. Damn if it didn't, after all these months, and all these washings of sheets, still smell like her shampoo.


	2. Chapter 2

On Saturday morning, Coach Taylor awoke later than usual, at 7:30 AM. He went to Eric's room to check that the boy had come inside last night. The door creaked as he eased it open. The teenager was snoring softly beneath his heavy Cowboys comforter, the one his mother had quilted for him when he was just eight. Eric had put it in storage in the attic when he turned twelve, too old then, he thought, for a bedroom theme, but he'd drawn it out again a month after she died.

From Eric's wall hung a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Calendar. Miss November was nearly naked. Ivy would have never allowed that on his wall, and maybe Coach Taylor should have told him to take it down. Ivy would have given Eric a lecture on respecting women if he'd put that up under her watch. Coach Taylor wasn't much for lectures himself, unless they related to football, but he hoped he'd at least shown Eric how to respect a woman by the way he had treated his own wife. He wasn't so sure, though. The boy had broken up with his steady girlfriend, a sweet, quiet and modest girl named Mary Ellen, and for the past few months, Coach Taylor had heard rumors that Eric had been jumping from cheerleader to cheerleader, leaving disappointment in his wake. Ivy would have made Coach Taylor talk to the boy about it, but in her absence, Deacon Taylor found it so much easier just to talk about football. Not that it mattered. Soon enough, Eric wouldn't have contact with any girls for seven months.

Coach Taylor quietly closed the door. He walked to the kitchen, started the coffee, and then slid the chair out from the kitchen desk and eased down on the hard wood. The plastic of the receiver from the kitchen phone was cool and slick in his hand. The cards of the rolodex fluttered as he turned it to the M's. Coach Taylor hadn't seen or spoken to Warren Maddox since Ivy's funeral. He put his finger in the hole for the number one, turned the wheel, and watched it whirl. He dialed the numbers one by one. His father-in-law would be awake. On the ranch, he woke with the sun.

"Second Chances Ranch," a teenage boy answered.

"Warren Maddox please."

"May I ask who's calling?"

"Coach Deacon Taylor."

A click of receiver against wood was followed by silence, and then his father-in-law's deep Texas drawl, "Deacon, what can I do ya for?"

"You were right. Eric started lashing out after Ivy died, just like you thought he would." Warren had warned him this might happen at the funeral, but Coach Taylor had shrugged off his father-in-law's unsolicited advice with the words,  _Eric's always been a well-behaved kid._

"And what have you done about it?" Warren asked.

"Hell, I've just been trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And I know I haven't done a good job with him. He's about to get convicted of a DUI."

"Is he now?"

"And that's the third time I've had to pick him up from the station. The others were for public intoxication. His grades are in the gutter. I've pulled him from the team. I'm at a loss. I was hoping you could take him when the semester's over. I'll drive him down during winter break, leave him with you until August. See if you can't straighten him out."

"You always were too concerned with your own things."

The heat rushed to Coach Taylor's head. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Well, you sure didn't think of Ivy – of her education - or of me or Ivy's mother when you eloped with her."

"That was twenty-one years ago."

"She was barely eighteen, Deacon."

"Legal marrying age," Coach Taylor reminded him. "And you got married when you were only sixteen."

"That was a different time, and I asked my future father-in-law for her hand. You were working for me, Deacon, living in my bunk house with the other ranch hands. I gave you not only a job but room and board when you desperately needed it. And you thanked me for it by seducing my daughter and moving her hundreds of miles away from me."

"I didn't go about it the right way twenty-one years ago," Coach Taylor told his father-in-law. "I should have asked for her hand and your blessing. All these delinquent boys you've turned around in the past fifteen years, these boys you've cared for like your own - and still you can't forgive me that one thing?"

"She was all I had after her mother died, and you just took her without a word. After seducing her  _under my roof._ "

Deacon didn't know what his father-in-law imagined went on back then. He and Ivy had flirted and kissed and maybe petted a little, but Ivy had refused to have sex with him outside of marriage. Maybe that was partly why he'd been so eager to marry her so fast. He'd been blindly infatuated with her back then – she was funny and smart and beautiful, so very beautiful. She could ride a horse and shoot like Annie Oakley, too, and Deacon didn't think there was another girl like her in all the world. He was older, but she was more mature, more grounded. He'd gone to Texas A&M on a full scholarship and lost it his freshman year when he broke his arm. The arm had healed, but he'd never gotten his scholarship back, and he'd never finished college. Deacon's parents barely had two dimes to rub together, so he sent his mother money from his jobs whenever he could. He'd drifted from town to town after dropping out of college, looking for work and taking it wherever he could find it.

He'd married Ivy for somewhat shallow reasons at first. He'd wanted to bed her something awful. And their first three years of marriage had been touch and go, as they eked out an existence hundreds of miles from both their families. They fought and they learned. She wouldn't take any crap from him at all, and she'd taught him how to argue and how to love. With her support, he worked his way up, and eventually, even without a degree, he became an Athletic Director and coach of a large high school. They grew together and grieved together through three miscarriages before finally rejoicing in Eric's birth. Deacon Taylor had grown to love that woman more than himself, and he'd have done anything to please her.

"I loved your daughter, Warren. I was faithful to her. I provided for her. I loved her long and hard. You can fault me for a hundred things, but not for my lack of love for her."

"Then love her son."

"I do. I love  _our_  son. That's why I'm willing to turn him over to you for a while. That's why I'm willing to take him off my team and probably lose the best chance I've had at State in the course of my entire career. Because I love him and I don't know how to help him become the man I know he can be. I don't know how to do it without Ivy."

"Did you tell him that's why you're sending him to me? Because you love him?"

"Not in those words."

"Then use those words," Warren Maddox said, "before you send him to me." And with that, he hung up.

[*]

Coach Taylor pushed the bottle of anabuse pills across the chipped yellow formica kitchen counter top. "I want to see you take it."

Eric sighed and rolled his eyes. He pushed down on the childproof cap, twisted, fingered out a pill, and then swallowed it dry. "Happy?"

"No, I'm not happy you have to take these."

"Don't know why the court's making me. I'm not an alcoholic. I only get drunk after games. So do a lot of other guys. I don't hear you chewing out Joey and Mack. They were with me when I got arrested, you know."

"They weren't driving. And I did chew them out. I'm benching them both for the next two games. They don't get to come back on the team until the playoffs."

Eric shoved a folder into his backpack, which was lying on the counter, and violently zipped it up. "You won't even make it to the playoffs without the three of us."

"Maybe not, but Mo McArnold is doing better than I expected." Mo was Coach Taylor's second string quarterback. He'd moved him up to replace Eric. "He's eager to prove himself. He's working hard. You could learn a thing or two from him."

"From Mo?" Eric slung his backpack over his shoulder.

"He's polite, a hard worker, no arrests. B+ average." Coach Taylor thought he better broach this subject. Ivy would have wanted him to, maybe more than any of the others: "And he's respectful toward girls."

Eric snorted. "You don't know what goes on off your field."

"I know enough to know  _you_  haven't been respectful to girls. And your mother would be mortified."

"Playing the dead mother card again, are you?" Eric leaned back against the stove and crossed his arms over his chest. "I haven't done anything with a girl she didn't  _want_ me to do."

"Oh, well congratulations on not being a rapist."

Eric shook his head and looked away.

"You break up with Mary Ellen, a truly sweet girl – because she won't put out for you, and then you start cycling through the cheer- "

"- Never bothered you when your star linebacker was doing it."

"Rick's not my son.  _You're_  my son. I have higher standards for you than my other players, and it's not true that it didn't bother me. But I'm not that boy's father." Coach Taylor sighed. He wasn't getting anywhere with this conversation. "Let's go."

"Why do I even have to go to school and finish out the semester, if you're just going to make me retake my entire junior year next year?"

"Because you're sixteen, Eric. This is what you do. You go to school."

"Until you can pawn me off on Grandpa Maddox, you mean?"

The sense of failure welled up in Coach Taylor's chest, churned, and turned to anger. "You brought this on yourself, Eric. Now get in the damn truck!"

Coach Taylor paced after his son to the kitchen door. As he was locking the door from the outside, the passenger's door of the truck slammed and echoed beneath the carport. When they were parked in the school lot, Eric didn't open the door right away. Coach Taylor thought he was bitter about the role he'd been assigned - hauling water, cleaning toilets, and doing laundry for the team. He had to watch, from the sidelines, Mo assume his mantle. "A little hard work never hurt anyone, son. You're going to be doing a hell of a lot more than this on the ranch."

"Yeah, I get paid for any of it?"

"Hopefully you'll get paid dividends in character."

"If you think Grandpa Maddox is such a great guy," Eric asked, jerking his backpack up from the floor. "Then why do you two hardly ever talk to each other? Why has he only come to visit twice since I was born?"

"We talk, your grandfather and I. A couple times a year. Your mother visited him a few times over the years, too, without us. But you know Weslaco's a long ways away."

Eric put his hand on the car door handle. "By the way, whatever you might have heard around school, I didn't break up with Mary Ellen because she wouldn't put out. We lost our virginity to each other a week before Mom died. And Mary Ellen initiated it."

Coach Taylor blinked.

"I didn't break up with her at all.  _She_  broke up with  _me_  because I wasn't fun to hang out with anymore after Mom died. She put up with me the first three months, out of guilt, but then she said she just couldn't do it anymore. She said she wasn't my psychiatrist, and she couldn't make me her project to fix. She had to move on with her life. So, yeah, I fooled around with some perfectly willing girls after she cut me loose, because I thought it would make her jealous and make me feel better. But you wouldn't know any of that, would you? Because you never fucking asked." He threw his shoulder against the door to push it open.

A thousand words clattered around in Coach Taylor's mind.  _I didn't know that, son, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you after your mother died. I'm sorry I could barely function myself. I'm sorry I've been drowning my sorrows in football. I love you, and I'm sorry I'm not the father your mother would have wanted me to be. I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry._ But what came out was, "Don't you  _ever_  use that language with me again!"

The passenger's door slammed shut.


	3. Chapter 3

Eric shoved the football down into his stack of underwear. He had to lay his body across the suitcase to zip it up all the way around. Seven months he'd be gone from home. Seven months with no girls, no football team, nothing but mucking stalls and bailing hay and God knows what else Grandpa Maddox was going to make him do. He'd have to spend his days with a bunch of juvenile delinquents, too – other "troubled" teenage boys. Why did his father think it was going to help him to hang out with a bunch of degenerates anyway?

Eric sighed and looked around his room at all the Pee Wee and high school football trophies that lined his dresser and book case. Under Mo McArnold's new leadership, the Bowie Boars had made it to the playoffs without him, but they'd been slaughtered in the first game, 49-6. Maybe he'd win a state ring next year, when he came back to his father's team, if Grandpa "fixed" him to Dad's satisfaction.

Eric walked to his dresser where a photo lay face down and turned it up. His mother smiled from the frame, in front of the Christmas tree from two years ago. Eric, just as tall as her, smiled forcefully to her left, obviously annoyed at what must have been the third or fourth photo take. Eric's dad had his arm around his mom in the photo and was looking down at her with an unfamiliar warmth in his eyes, a light Eric hadn't seen since she'd died. He was suddenly struck with the realization of how much his father had lost, too, and he felt a strange empathy for the man he didn't _want_  to feel.

Eric shoved the photo in the outer pocket of his suitcase and zipped that up to. As they were loading the pick-up later, Eric noticed the  ** _Sold_**  sign on the small, two-bedroom rambler next door. "Wonder who would buy that piece of shit house," he said.

"Language," his father told him, and shut the hatch of the pick-up.

[*]

Eric turned up the volume on his Sony Walkman as Coach Taylor pulled the pick-up onto I-35. In the rear view mirror, the sun rose on Euless, the sixth town Eric had lived in over the past sixteen years. They'd kept moving for bigger and better coaching gigs for his father, though Eric's mother had insisted they stay put in Dillon for all three years of Eric's middle school. His father had wanted him to play for the Dillon Panthers, but, unfortunately, the Panthers were not in need of a head coach, and the Bowie High Boars were.

It was going to be a long drive. Eight hours at least. They'd packed a cooler for lunch in case nothing was open on Christmas Eve. Coach Taylor had sports radio on low. The commentators had been debating the relative quality of various NFL head coaches, which interested his father but meant little to Eric. He loved to play, but he never understood why anyone would want to coach.  _Those who can't **do**_ , he would mutter behind his father's back,  _teach_.

They'd probably driven two hours when Coach Taylor suddenly ripped the headphones off Eric's head.

"Hey!" Eric barked. "I was listening to that."

Coach Taylor turned off the car radio with a click and then tossed Eric's Walkman, still playing, in the backseat. Music drifted from the headphones. "I'm not going to see you for seven months. Your mother would want us to use this time to talk."

Eric bent through the space between the two seats and grabbed his Walkman from the back. He plunked down in his seat again and stopped the cassette tape before flipping it over. "We both know that's not what either of  _us_  wants."

"Put the damn Walkman in the back!" his father ordered. "And put your seat belt on, too."

"Why? There's no law that says I have to wear one."

"Well they're about to pass one."

Eric threw the Walkman on the back seat and buckled in. "Fine. Let's get this over with. What do you want me to talk about?"

Coach Taylor bit down on his back teeth so hard Eric thought he was going to grind the bottom row off. His father's knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. But then he cleared his throat and calmly, forcefully asked, "What are you most looking forward to on the ranch?"

"Leaving it in August."

"You're not interested in riding horses at all?"

"No, I'm not a twelve-year-old girl."

"Your mother grew up on that ranch. You know, she used to jump horses. She was good."

"Yeah? Why'd she stop?" Eric asked.

"Well, we couldn't afford to stable a horse, not until a few years ago, and by then...I guess she was out of practice. Lost interest, too, I suppose. Maybe I should have encouraged her to keep that up." He ran a hand across his mouth. "She gave up a lot for me."

Eric looked out the window.

There was a long silence, and then his father asked, "What was your favorite subject in school this year?"

"Lunch."

"That's not a subject," his father said with irritation.

"P.E."

"Besides P.E.," he insisted.

"Well, I got bad grades in all of them, according to you, so I guess nothing."

"You got a B in American History."

Eric threw up his hand. "Fine, American History was my favorite subject. You happy now? Are we done talking?"

"Yeah. We're done talking," Coach Taylor answered, and clicked the radio back on, turning it up louder this time, so that when Eric retrieved his Walkman, he had to put it all the way on ten.

[*]

The tires kicked up dust on the gravely dirt road that led through the open gates of Second Chances Ranch. The air was fifteen degrees warmer than it had been when they left Euless. Eric would have worn short sleeves had he known.

Grandpa Maddox looked like something out of a black and white western when he strolled out to meet the pick-up. His brown-and-tan, snake-skin cowboy boots were intricately decorated with white stitching in the shape of a cross, and angry looking spurs stuck out the back. He was taller even than Eric's father, a towering 6'4", his thick gray hair curling out beneath the black Stetson that was cocked down on his head. His cheeks were grizzled, like he hadn't shaved in about 32 hours. "Deacon," he said and extended his hand. Eric's father shook.

Grandpa Maddox nodded to Eric. "Good to see you, young man." His Texas accent was ten feet deep. "Glad to have you on board. I can use all the help I can get." He said help like it didn't have a letter  _l_  in it.

Eric didn't reply.

"Yes, sir?" Grandpa Maddox asked gently. "Lookin' forward to it?"

"Yes, sir," Eric echoed, a bit sarcastically. "Looking forward to it."

"Well, I'll show you to your room, then. Grab your suitcase."

Eric was led into the main house of the ranch, which was made of wood planks and had a rustic smell to it. A giant, brown, metal, decorative star hung from the outside, the sort of stars you saw all over Texas. They went through a large kitchen with a long, picnic-bench like table and copper pots and cast iron pans hanging from above the island stove top, past a Christmas tree in the living room, littered with presents beneath, and to a bedroom, where Grandpa Maddox left him, saying, "I'm gonna talk to your pa a bit. Get to know yer roommates."

Eric set his suitcase down and looked at the tall, pale, teenager lying on his side on the top bunk. He was reading  _Of Mice and Men._  The boy's head was shaved into a neat, brownish-blonde buzz cut, and he had a swastika tattooed to his lean upper arm, which you could see easily because of the wife beater t-shirt he was wearing. On the bunk below him was a black kid, short but sinewy, his muscles rippling against his Malcolm X t-shirt. He was working on a book of crossword puzzles. They were strange bedfellows, to say the least.

The black kid sat up, swinging his legs onto the floor. "I'm Dante. You get that bunk." He pointed to another bunk bed that had a mattress on the bottom but not on the top.

"Dante?" Eric asked. "Like…the Inferno guy?"

"Yeah. You got a problem with it?"

Eric shook his head. "No. No problem."

Now the white kid sat up, swinging his legs over the bunk and right into Dante's face. Dante smacked the legs out of his face and crawled out of the bunk to lean against the closet door instead. Standing up like that, he looked a little a taller, but Eric didn't think he could be more than 5'8".

"And this here's Adolf," Dante said.

"Name's William, actually," the white kid said. "But you can call me Billy."

Eric put his suitcase on the bunk, which was already made up. "I'm Eric. Where do I put my clothes?"

Billy dropped down from the top bunk. "Ya get this drawer." He walked over to the tall, oak dresser and rolled the bottom drawer open with his bare left foot. He was missing his little toe. It was just a stub. Eric tried not to stare, but he must have been, because Billy said, "What the hell you lookin' at, city boy?"

Eric busied himself with unzipping his suitcase. He didn't mention that he lived in a semi-rural suburb. "I'll only be able to fit half of my clothes in there."

"Keep the rest of your shit in your suitcase," Billy said.

"And keep your suitcase under your bed," Dante added.

Eric started unpacking, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the two teenagers, who seemed to be watching him intently.

"You're Warren's grandson?" Dante asked.

"Yeah." They called him  _Warren_? Eric thought his grandfather would have insisted on  _Sir._  His father sure as hell did.

"Don't for a second think that's gonna get ya out of shoveling shit," Billy told him. "We all start there."

"A'right," Eric replied. He felt very uncomfortable with their eyes on him as he tried to cram as many of his clothes as he could in the bottom drawer.

"You bring any porn mags?" Billy asked.

"No," Eric replied.

"Good," Billy said. "'Cause the whole room gets extra chores if we get caught with 'em, and I ain't gettin' saddled with extra chores without kickin' someone's ass. And Dante here'll kick yer ass twice. Hell, he'll kick it six ways to Sunday."

"Duly noted," Eric said and rolled the drawer shut.

"We've got today off," Dante told him. "And tomorrow for Christmas. Then it's back to work. Lights out at ten every night except tonight."

"Ten?" Eric asked. He was used to staying up until midnight at home.

"Yer gonna wish ya went to bed at nine when ya gotta wake with the rooster in the mornin'," Billy told him.

"Where are you from?" Dante asked.

"Euless," Eric answered.

"Where the hell's that?" Billy asked.

"Between Dallas and Fort Worth."

"Too many damn towns in this state," Billy said. "How long were ya in juvie?"

Eric scratched the back of his head nervously. He wasn't sure it was a good idea to let these guys know he'd never set foot inside a juvenile detention center. "About a year," he lied.

"A  _year_?" Dante asked. "Half of us only got community service, the rest, a couple months maybe, before we got sent here."

"Yeah," Billy agreed. "What the hell did you  _do_?"

"Uh...well..."

"He killed a man just to watch him die," came Grandpa Maddox's deep voice from the doorway. He stood there, a thumb hooked through his belt loop, next to his silver belt buckle with the letter SCR in a circle, which Eric guessed stood for  _Second Chances Ranch._

Dante chuckled and Billy rolled his eyes.

"C'mon, grandson," Grandpa Maddox said. "I'll introduce you to the rest of the boys."


	4. Chapter 4

Grandpa Maddox introduced Eric to the other seven boys who lived on the ranch, while Eric's father trailed behind them, looking like maybe he feared he'd made a bad decision to leave Eric with these riff raff.

The boys ranged in age from fourteen to seventeen, and they all looked a little rough around the edges. Eric tried to make a note of their names, but he wasn't sure he was going to remember them all. The only other white kid besides himself and Billy was a long-haired dirty blonde name Jackson, and Eric could probably manage to remember that. He wouldn't forget Tiny, either, a hefty, black eighteen-year-old with the build of a linebacker, or his younger, much smaller brother Sonny. But he was probably going to mix up Carlos, Javier, Juan, and Fernando.

They all had dinner together on that giant picnic bench of a kitchen table, which took up the whole long dining area. The food was served to them by the hired help, a plump, forty-something woman named Juanita. She stayed in the "guest house" (a small, two bedroom cottage about a half acre from the main house) with her husband Joe, who helped Grandpa Maddox train horses.

The table was boisterous, and Eric took it all in. He saw his father looking warily from boy to boy. There was a lot of talk and laughter and, once Juanita had retreated from the kitchen, bawdy humor of the sort Eric's own father ignored in the locker room but would have shut down immediately at his own dinner table. Eric's father raised an eyebrow and said, "Practically got your own football team here, Warren."

"We get a game going of a Sunday afternoon, from time to time, don't we boys?"

"We can do five on five now," Jackson said, nodding to Eric. "Without you having to risk throwing out your back, old man."

"Warren can finally referee fair and square," Dante said, "instead of always making calls in favor of his own team."

"Warren?" Eric's father asked, with the same surprise Eric had not voiced.

Grandpa Maddox ignored the question. "My son-in-law here's a fine football coach," he said. "Of a 5A high school. It's a shame he can't stay and train y'all up."

Eric's father shifted uncomfortably on the bench, as though he wasn't quite sure what to do about the unexpected compliment. "Well, sir, I'd love to," Coach Taylor replied, "but I do have a full-time job to return to."

"Ain't no high school football in January," Billy said.

"Well, I'm also the Athletic Director for the whole school," Coach Taylor answered. "I have to oversee all the sports. And there's spring training and coach's meetings and that sort of thing."

"What's that shit pay?" Tiny asked.

"Rephrase," Grandpa Maddox said simply.

"Sorry, I mean, is that a lucrative job, Coach Taylor," Tiny asked.

"It pays the mortgage," he replied.

After dinner, they all went outside to some kind of outdoor chapel for a Christmas Eve service. There were three rows and two columns of six wooden pews angled toward a cross. Grandpa Maddox led the prayers and gave a little talk about how they could all take the humility of Christ as an example. If God Himself could become a mewling infant lying in a feeding trow, well, then they could all probably manage to help one another with their menial chores around the ranch.

Christ was a carpenter, he reminded them, "a true working man, and there is no lack of dignity in hard work. We don't dirty ourselves with earth or paint or wood or manure. The only things that dirty us are the meanness and unkindness we show to one another, and that can be forgiven, forgotten, buried in the past as we walk forward in peace, putting off the old things and putting on the new." It all sounded like a lot of hooey to Eric, but no one appeared to be making fun. Billy was chewing on his thumbnail, and Dante was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head bent forward.

After that little homily, they all sung Christmas carols. Dante played guitar, and Billy did some surprisingly good accompaniment with nothing but a pair of spoons. Tiny's voice was unexpectedly angelic. Next there was hot chocolate and a gift exchange in the living room, where Eric tore the green paper off a box from his Grandpa Maddox to find a pair of brand new cowboy boots.

"It's gonna hurt like hell breakin' 'em in," Billy told him. "But they's nice, ain't they?"

" _Aren't_  they?" Dante corrected him.

"Shut up, n -now why don't ya?"

Dante raised an eyebrow. "You almost slipped."

Billy looked hesitantly at Grandpa Maddox, who gave him a stern look but said nothing.

Dante was sitting on the floor near the tree, and he pushed Eric another box wrapped in red. "That's probably your cowboy hat."

It was two hours past the usual lights out time when Eric crawled onto the mattress of his new bed. His two roommates were snoring within minutes, but he lay staring up at the black wire of the mattress-less bunk above him for another hour, feeling alone and out of place, but also realizing, with a strange sense of emptiness, that for the past several months, he had been no less alone back "home" in Euless.

[*]

The following morning, on Christmas Day, Eric's father left after breakfast and asked him to walk out to the truck with him. "I know you hate me for this right now, Eric," he told him. "But I think this is best for you. You need….I don't know what you need, son. I just know I can't give it to you. I need to get my own head on straight right now. And your grandfather has a reputation for doing great work here on this ranch. We haven't always seen eye to eye, him and me, but I respect him. And I expect you to show him respect, too."

"Yes, sir," Eric muttered. The fire wasn't in him to be angry right now. He just felt...abandoned. He looked down at the new, brown leather cowboy boots on his feet. It was already sixty degrees, at 10 AM, on Christmas day. He couldn't imagine what the spring and summer were going to be like.

"Son…" His father sighed. It was a heavier sigh than Eric had ever heard from the man, and it made him look up. "Eric, I love you, son. And I'm doing this  _because_  I love you. I just want you to become the man your mother always believed you'd be."

Eric bit down hard on his lower lip, until he could almost taste blood. He hated it when his father guilt-tripped him like that, but he could feel it, the shame, like a wave, tossing and turning in his stomach –  _I've disappointed my mother. She would have been ashamed of me._  "Mhmh," Eric murmured.

"Did you hear anything I just said to you?"

"Yeah, Mom didn't want me to be the jerk-off I've become. I heard you. Enjoy your vacation without me getting in your hair." Eric turned and walked away. His father called his name, but when he didn't turn back, Coach Taylor didn't call it again.

Eric heard the truck roar to life and the rocky earth crunch beneath the tires.

[*]

There were no chores on Christmas Day. Grandpa Maddox showed him around the ranch, explained the ruled, and explained the chores. "But there's recreation, too," he promised him. "We work hard and we play hard. Wait until we all go to your first rodeo. And we'll take a shopping trip across the border to Matamoros one of these days."

"Sounds swell," Eric said.

"That tone's gonna have to go," Grandpa Maddox told him. "But it will."

"What am I doing here?" Eric asked him. "I'm not a juvenile delinquent."

"Neither are any of these boys. Anymore."

The worst was when Eric learned grandpa didn't own a television, explaining, "We don't get any reception out here."

"Ever hear of cable?" Eric asked him.

"Ever hear of throwing money down a drain?"

"What about Monday night football? The Superbowl!"

"We'll all go watch the super ball at the tavern. The other games you'll just have to do without."

"Un-fucking-believable," Eric muttered, to which his grandfather said, "Rephrase," and he asked, "What?"

"Rephrase that."

"Unbelievable," Eric said.

"Rephrase it again."

"I can't believe I can't even watch football?"

"Hmmm..." Grandpa Maddox mused. "And I can't believe a boy as talented and intelligent as you got in a car while drunk and jeopardized the life of his friends. But there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies, Eric."

The last thing Grandpa Maddox showed him was his library, an entire room filled with floor to ceiling bookcases, four arm chairs, a coffee table, and a roll-top writing desk with chair. The cases looked handmade and built-in. Grandpa pulled a book off the shelf, something about grief, and handed it to Eric. "You have one week to read this and turn in a one-page book report."

"Are you serious? Why am I doing school work when I'm just going to have to repeat my junior year?"

"Every boy reads one book a week and writes one page. That's the deal. Twenty minutes of math a day, at your level. Get ya ahead for next year. I got all the books. Other than that, no schoolin', 'cept what you learn working on the ranch. And you'll learn more than you think."

Eric rolled his eyes but took the book. That afternoon, while the other boys played cards or read or slept or whatever they felt like, grandpa took him horseback riding. It took him awhile to get the hang of it, and he was grateful the man had taken him in private, because he might have embarrassed himself in front of the riff raff otherwise. At least by the end of the afternoon, he had some idea what to do.

Christmas dinner was simpler than Christmas Eve dinner, but it was good, especially the apple pie that topped it all off. That night, Eric started reading the book in the hour they had before lights out. Apparently, they had to be in their rooms at nine, even if lights out was at ten, and there was nothing else to do. Dante was already asleep, and Billy was reading the same book Eric had seen him with yesterday.

"Can't believe we have to read a book a week," he muttered.

"Ain't much," Billy replied. "Hell of a lot better here than at school, where ya got to put yer ass in a chair seven hours a day."

"So he assinged you  _Of Mice and Men_?" Eric asked, nodding up at Billy's book.

"Nah, already finished my book for the week. Just wanted to read this. Ain't no TV."

[*]

The next morning, Eric awoke to the feel of his body hitting the floor. Billy stood at his head and Dante at his feet. Billy was grinning down on him while Dante merely looked peeved. They'd apparently drug him off the bed and dropped him on the floor.

"Rise and shine, city boy!" Billy yelled cheerfully. "Time to shovel shit!"

"Get dressed quickly," Dante insisted. "The whole room gets in trouble if one of us is late."

Eric rubbed the sleep dust from his eyes and pulled himself into a standing position. "In trouble how?"

"More chores."

"What is this," Eric asked, "a labor camp?"

"Get dressed," Dante repeated.

After an hour of mucking the stalls, and breathing in the fowl stench of manure, Eric cursed and threw his shovel against the wood wall of the barn. He stormed his way out of the barn and back toward the ranch house. He wasn't a slave. No way in hell his grandfather could make him keep doing this.

But it wasn't his grandfather who made him. He'd gotten no more than ten yards from the barn when Dante and Billy blocked his path. "Cain't be done already," Billy said.

"I'm done," Eric replied. "I'm done with this whole damn place."

Dante brought his short but muscular frame within an inch of Eric. "No, you're not. Now go on and do your chores."

Eric tried to walk around him, but he shifted to the left.

"Why are you trying to stop me?" Eric asked. "What's it to you?"

"Warren said it's our job to acclimate you," Dante replied.

"Acclimate me?"

"And if ya screw up," Billy added, "whole room loses privileges."

"What privileges?" Eric asked. "Nothing here is a privilege."

"Get to go to a movie on Friday evenings," Billy said. "Warren pays for the tickets and the popcron."

"Indoor pool on Saturday afternoon," Dante added. "Warren pays for admission."

"There's girls at the movies," Billy explained.

"And at the pool," Dante said.

"And it's the only time we so much as lay eyes on a pair of titties, other than the help's, and she's old." Billy took a menacing step forward. "So get back in that barn."

"So you're his enforcers?" Eric asked. "Why don't you just sneak out and do what you want anyway? Why are you so afraid of him?"

"We aren't afraid," Dante said.

"Ain't about fear," Billy agreed.

They didn't say anything else, but when Eric tried to get around them a second time, they moved to block him again. Finally, he sighed and returned to his chores.


	5. Chapter 5

Maybe Coach Taylor should have stayed at Second Chances Ranch for all of winter break, instead of riding off in the dust on Christmas morning, but he didn't feel quite welcome under his father-in-law's roof, even though there were no harsh words exchanged between them. Besides, it reminded him too much of those months in his youth when his eyes and his desire and his fascination had turned, bit by bit, to Ivy.

It was strange, being in the house without Eric, without the annoying sounds of 70s rock n' roll seeping from beneath the boy's bedroom door, sometimes turned up so loud as to rattle the frame; no one to wake early in the morning and force to run plays; no one to sit sullenly at the dinner table across from him after a perfunctory grace. Ivy had made them each say one thing they were thankful for every night as part of the grace, but the last few months, whenever Coach Taylor asked Eric to pray, he shot through, "Bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies, In Jesus name, Amen," like there was some kind of finish line he had to cross.

These days, Coach Taylor just said grace silently in his head, and he used the same hollow words, like a mantra without meaning. The food tasted bland. He'd learned to cook more than BBQ and pancakes, finally, in the wake of Ivy's death, but he never made anything quite like she had, and now that he was feeding only one, he'd stacked the freezer full of Hungry Man frozen dinners.

He went to the office every day, even though he had nothing much to do there, and even though the school was mostly empty. He reviewed the equipment orders twice, organized the file cabinet, double checked the school's eligibility for every sport, watched last football season's game tape, and put all the upcoming winter basketball games on the wall calendar.

He even went to the office on New Year's Day. When he returned home and stepped out of the pick-up onto the oil-stained cement of the carport, he noticed a teenage girl struggling with a box as she made her way from a U-haul truck down the beaten path in the grass that led to the front door of the recently sold house. He dropped his satchel and ran to help her, scooping the box effortlessly from her hands. "Let me get that," he said.

When she said "Thanks" and smiled, she reminded him instantly of Ivy the year he'd met her. She didn't look anything like Ivy, who had been dark haired and lightly tanned with hazel eyes you could melt into - the beautiful eyes Eric had inherited. This girl was a blue-eyed strawberry blonde, but it was the momentary, sheer genuineness of her smile that remind him of his young bride.

Coach Taylor followed her into the house and lay the box down on a dining room table. The legs of all the furniture were still wrapped. He patted the top of the box and was about to volunteer further help when a woman rounded the corner from the other side of the dining room and screamed. Coach Taylor took a startled step back.

The woman put a hand on her chest as though stilling palpitations and said, "Tami, what is a strange man doing in our house?"

The girl, who's genuine smile had since faded and been replaced by a bored mask, said, "He was helping with the box, Auntie. Obviously."

The woman, a striking red head with sparkling green eyes who appeared to be in her mid-thirties, looked like she'd just stepped off some kind of Scottish moor. She wore an ankle-length, pine green skirt and long-sleeve, white blouse, and for some reason, she, too, reminded Deacon of Ivy, though they looked nothing alike. He was trying to pinpoint what had reminded him, when he remembered the day Ivy had come out to the backyard, wearing a similar skirt, interrupting the plays he was running with a twelve-year-old Eric, and twirling across the dying fall grass, singing that the hills were alive with the sound of music. Eric, mortified by his mother, had run inside. "Got him to dinner fast," she'd said. "Now you're the only hold up." Deacon Taylor tossed the football aside, grabbed his wife by the waist, and pulled her to his chest, crushing his lips down on hers and then muttering, "Sorry, you can spank me later, sweetheart," and she'd laughed and said, "You'd like that, wouldn't you, you naughty boy," before squirming loose and running laughing into the house.

"Tami," the woman warned, holding up one finger. "You do not let strange men follow you into your house. If they offer to carry your boxes, you have them set them on the doorstep. You do not let them come inside. That can be a trick." She glanced at a black leather purse resting on the dining room table. "I'm five inches from that purse, mister," she said. "It has .22, and I know how to use it."

"Ma'am..." Deacon took off his coach's cap. "I'm just your next door neighbor. I saw her struggling with the box and volunteered to help."

Tami opened the box that was on the dining room table and began unpacking it. "Well Aunt Bonnie knows that the quiet, polite, helpful neighbor  _always_  turns out to be the secret serial killer."

"I had a client once, Tami," Bonnie said, a sharp tone to her voice. "I  _told_  you."

Tami shook her head and unwrapped a dinner plate.

Coach Taylor extended his hand to Bonnie. "Coach Deacon Taylor," he said.

"Oooh…." Tami cooed sarcastically as she reached into the box for another item, " _Coach_. He has a  _title_ , Auntie. Aren't you impressed?"

Bonnie shook his hand and then raised that finger at Tami again. "This is the sort of the thing we talked about on the drive over. This is the sort of rude sarcasm that has to stop if you want to be rid of me and go back home."

"Who says I want to be rid of you?" Tami asked. "You aren't half as annoying as my mom is. I'm going to get another box."

Bonnie smiled apologetically when Tami brushed past Coach Taylor. "My niece," she said. "She almost dropped out of high school last semester, so my sister has sent her to live with me, straighten her out, you know. I'm a psychiatrist. Well, a psychologist. Okay, a counselor, actually."

"Uh-huh."

"And this is a good school district. That's why I bought this house. So I can enroll her at Bowie High and give her a chance at a good education. Frankly, they let far too much slide at her old school."

"I coach football there," Deacon replied.

"Don't judge my sister," Bonnie insisted suddenly.

"Ma'am, I don't even know your sister."

"I mean, for sending her daughter to live with me. She's got trouble with the younger one, too, but it's a different sort of trouble, and she can only handle one child right now. She just didn't know what to do with Tami."

"I know the feeling," Coach Taylor assured her.

Bonnie sighed. "Tami went from being a straight A student to nearly failing out. My sister doesn't know what's going on with her, but I aim to find out."

"Well, Bonnie," Coach Taylor said, having learned to remember names by inserting them early into conversation, "For someone who thought I might be wending my way into your house to attack you a moment ago, you sure are candid."

Bonnie let out a girlish, joyful laugh. "Well, I guess you're just too charming a sociopath."

Coach Taylor, holding his black cap by the bill, let it rest against his hip. "Did you really have a client who was a serial killer?"

"No, he was a serial rapist. He used to offer to help women carry groceries into their apartments when he saw them with their hands full."

"Oh. Well...I'm just your next-door neighbor."

"Doesn't preclude you form being a serial rapist," Tami said as she set another, smaller box down on the dining room table. She looked Coach Taylor up and down. "But if you're going to ravish us, could you at least help with the rest of the boxes first?"

"Tami!" Bonnie scolded.

Coach Taylor pressed his twitching, almost smiling lips into a stern line. He'd have been angry at that kind of sarcasm coming from his own son and directed at a stranger, but it was sort of amusing when someone  _else's_  kid was doing it. He settled his cap back on his head. "Happy to oblige, Miss…."

"Hayes," Bonnie said. "We're both Hayes girls."

"Miss Hayes."

Halfway through the unloading of the truck, the ladies stopped assisting him altogether and began unpacking instead. He settled the last box on the kitchen counter, where Bonnie was unwrapping and putting away glasses, and said, "That's it."

"Can I offer you a glass of water?" she asked, and tilted the glass in her hand back and forth.

"I am thirsty, ma'am."

She rinsed the glass out in the kitchen sink, turned the tap all the way to cold, filled it, and handed it to him. "You can drink the tap water here, right?"

"Yes, ma'am, it's good. Not like south Texas. Where y'all from?"

"Tami's from Houston. I'm from three towns south, but I was renting, so the move was easy for me. Now that I'm farther north, I'm looking forward to seeing the big city."

"Which one?" Coach Taylor asked, and was momentarily surprised by the sheer normalcy of the conversation, the friendliness of it all, the lack of a necessary purpose and drive. He'd spoken so little to people since Ivy died, unless it pertained to football or other matters of business, that something as ordinary as this exchange struck him as abnormally pleasant. "Fort Worth or Dallas?"

"Well isn't Dallas the bigger city?" Bonnie asked.

"It is, but Fort Worth is more Texan. And it has a huge honky tonk. Maybe I can take you line dancing there one night." What the hell had he just said? Had he just offered to take this woman line dancing? "I mean, you and your husband."

"Subtle," said Tami, entering the kitchen from behind Bonnie and grabbing herself a glass for water.

"This is the sort of behavior we talked about," Bonnie reminded her. "Making situations awkward by pointing out the ulterior motives in people's words."

"Well, you just made it even more awkward, Auntie. Look at how red his cheeks are now." Tami flipped on the faucet. The water pooled into the glass, and the faucet squeaked when she turned it off. She took a sip and said, "My aunt's not married. If she was, I don't think her husband would leave us to move all these boxes by ourselves on New Year's Day."

"Tami, you never tell a man you're living alone in a house."

"You don't think he would figure it out pretty quickly when he didn't see anyone else here? You don't think he's already figured it out, and that's why he asked you to the honky tonk?"

"I wasn't…I didn't…." Coach Taylor stuttered, "I wasn't asking her to the honky tonk."

"Then what were you asking her?" Tami asked.

"I was just offering…you know…new and…." He swallowed.

"Oh.  _You're_ married," Tami said looking at his wedding ring.

Deacon turned the ring on his finger. "I was."

"Separated or divorced?" Tami asked. "My parents are divorced, and I haven't heard from my dad in over two years, but he took his wedding ring off even before he took off on us, so I'm guessing you're just separated."

"Widowed," he said.

The teenager's face suddenly transformed from a sort of mild, self-assured disdain to a look of sincere compassion. "I'm so sorry," she said.

"It was a little over a year ago. She died. Car crash. A truck driver. He was asleep at the wheel." He always liked to get that out. People were curious. They wanted to know  _how_. He didn't want to be asked.

"Y'all have any kids?" Tami asked.

"We have a son. Had a son. I mean,  _I_   _have_  a son. He's about your age. He's with his grandfather in Weslaco for the semester. He'll be back in August. He'll be a junior then."  _Again._

"So will I," Tami said.

"Assuming you buckle down and pull up those grades and pass this year," her Aunt clarified. "Which you better. Because, trust me, you don't want to turn 18 your  _junior_  year."

"Maybe we'll have some classes together," Tami told Coach Taylor.

"Oh!" Bonnie exclaimed. "Maybe he can be your pen pal!" She turned her attention to Coach Taylor. "Tami just got a list of her semester projects. For sophomore English, she has to choose a pen pal and write at least ten letters to him or her."

"It has to be someone at least 300 miles away," Tami clarified. "How far is Weslaco?"

"Almost 500 miles," Coach Taylor answered.

"Perfect!" Bonnie clapped her hands together. "You can get started on that one right away, Tami. Knock at least one project out of the park."

"The pen pal actually has to write back, Auntie," Tami told her. "You think some random guy on a ranch is going to write some girl he's never met?"

"I can call his grandfather and make sure he does," Coach Taylor said. "It would probably be a good exercise for him, anyway. He needs to keep his writing skills up to scratch while he's away." Deacon tipped his cap. "You ladies have a nice evening. Hope y'all settle in well."

He headed for the kitchen door.

"So what day and time?" Bonnie asked.

Coach Taylor turned. "What now?"

"When are you picking me up?" she asked.

"Ma'am?"

"For our line dancing date."

He thought he'd dodged that bullet. "Uh….oh. Um…."

"Saturday night?" Bonnie asked. "7:30? Because Tami's going to be studying, aren't you honey?"

"Oh yeah, like a study animal."

"Um…a'right," Coach Taylor muttered.

"Should I eat first," Bonnie asked, "or are you taking me to dinner?"

"We could…uh…um…we could eat there. At the honky tonk."

"Sounds romantic," Tami said, and set her glass in the sink with a clink.

"They have good barbecue," Coach Taylor explained, a little peeved.

"See you then," Bonnie said, but before Coach Taylor could flee, she called, "Wait! Change of plans.  _I'll_  pick  _you_  up. We're taking my car."

"Uh...a'right."

"Tami," Bonnie addressed her niece, "never let a man drive you on the first date. That way, if he tries to get fresh with you when you don't want him to, you've got an exit vehicle. You don't have to rely on him for a ride."

"You hear that?" Tami asked, looking at Coach Taylor with an amused, almost sympathetic smile. "Don't get fresh with my aunt, or she's going to desert you in the middle of Fort Worth with no car."

Wide-eyed, Coach Taylor quickly opened the kitchen door and made his getaway, wondering how the hell he'd managed to make a date with a crazy woman while simultaneously committing his son to becoming the pen pal of her dangerously pretty, near-dropout, smart ass niece.


	6. Chapter 6

Tami stood in the doorway to her aunt's bedroom and watched her put up her red hair. "You should wear it down," Tami said. "Guys like that better."

Aunt Bonnie lay her brush on the vanity. "You would know, wouldn't you?"

" _Ouch_ , Auntie."

"You knew we were going to talk about this sooner or later."

"But now?" Tami asked. "Five minutes before your big date?"

Aunt Bonnie stood up and turned around. She had a jean skirt on that came to just above her knees and a silky, pale pink blouse that showed off her cleavage because she left the top two buttons undone. Her brown, snakeskin cowgirl boots rose to just below her bare knees. She slid her cowgirl hat on her head. "Perfect time to talk about it. Then you won't have time to argue or fight with me."

Tami rolled her eyes and walked away, but her aunt followed her and trapped her in the kitchen.

"Tami, you should know that guys only want one thing from you."

"Is that why you're going out with Coach Taylor tonight?" Tami asked.

Bonnie pointed a finger sharply at her. "You're sixteen. You should not be having sex. At all. And if you  _have_  had sex," she looked at Tami knowingly, "you should know that doesn't mean you have to have it with the next boy you date."

Did Aunt Bonnie know about that boy at the party, the one she regretted? In the absence of her father, who had hardly been heard from since the divorce, Tami had perhaps been looking for male attention. At least, that would be Aunt Bonnie's analysis, and maybe she'd be right. Tami had naively thought she meant something to the guy, even though she barely knew him. He was older, charming, attractive. He said all the right words. And he played  _guitar_. But the next morning, in the school hallways, he acted like they'd never met. She'd cried herself to sleep that night, and then the next. And the next.

Tami swallowed and cast her eyes down at the brownish red tile of the kitchen floor.

"Right now, you should be concentrating on your school work," her aunt said, "making friends, and having fun with some kind of extracurricular. But not cheerleading.  _Please_  not cheerleading."

Tami looked up, brow furrowed. " _You_  were a cheerleader."

"I know. That's why I advise against it. You're constantly getting hit on. You don't need that right now. You need to concentrate on  _you_. In fact, no dating."

"What? That's insane."

Aunt Bonnie threw up a hand, "Okay, you're right. That's probably not going to work. How about this? We put some rules in place. No staying out past ten. No parties with alcohol. And if a boy is taking you out, he picks you up here and meets me first."

Tami crossed her arms over her chest. "I thought you told me never to let a boy drive on the first date."

Aunt Bonnie grabbed her purse. "So I did." She sighed. "Well, I don't know. We'll figure it out. But just know I'm not your mother, Tami. She's super strict and she's got all those  _rules_ , but she's  _clueless_  when it comes to what her girls are really up to. I may  _look_  dumb to you, but I'm  _not_  dumb. I know more than you think I do. And I  _will_  know what you're up to. I'll try to make reasonable rules. More reasonable than your mother. But only so long as you  _respect_  them."

"And if I don't?" Tami asked, not trying to sound snide, but honestly curious. It was hard to imagine Aunt Bonnie - who was the polar opposite of her own mother in personality - being severe.

"Well, then, I send you back to your mother. And you'll have to go back to that school and see that boy who broke your heart, and all those girls who laughed at you in the hallways afterward."

Tami's mouth fell open. "How did you - "

"-I didn't  _know_. I  _guessed_. Because I've been there myself. I made the same stupid mistakes as a girl. But there was no one to pick up the pieces for me afterward. Your mother had already graduated high school and was out of the house by then. So I want to be here, Tami, to pick up the pieces for you. Because I'm your aunt, and I love you." She glanced at her watch. "But I've got to go meet a totally hot guy right now."

Tami laughed to see her aunt's twinkling eyes. Aunt Bonnie was so erratic. Sensible and thoughtful one moment and like a silly girl the next. "Well don't let him get fresh with you," Tami teased.

"Be good while I'm gone," Bonnie told her. Tami wasn't sure how she could possibly get into trouble. The second semester of school hadn't started yet. They were still on winter break. She hadn't made a single friend. "And write that letter to Coach Taylor's son. Get that penpal project started. Knock at least one thing out."

"Fine," Tami muttered, though she had no desire to write some strange boy.

The kitchen door rattled lightly in the frame as Aunt Bonnie left.

[*]

Coach Taylor ran his hand over his hair one more time to try to flatten that cowlick that always threatened to rise up in the back. He peered out the kitchen window and then glanced at his watch. She was late.

Maybe she'd been joking with him. Maybe they weren't going to be any line dancing at Billy Bob's after all. And maybe that was for the best. Because if they  _were_  going out, then this would be his first date in over twenty years. The dating world had probably changed quite a bit in twenty years. He didn't know what the hell to do. Besides, he hardly knew her. He'd just met her, and she talked a little too freely. He didn't like talky women.

But damn she was pretty. It was hard to ignore that. She was...Oh, damn, was she pretty, walking up his driveway right now, that skirt tight against her skin, the blouse a little bit open, just enough…hips swaying. And that hat.  _Damn_. He'd always been a sucker for a girl in a cowboy hat and boots.

He ducked away from the window. He didn't want to appear to have been waiting and watching.

When she knocked, he opened the door and said, "You're late." He hadn't meant to say it, but it just rolled off his coach's tongue naturally.

She glanced at her watch. "It's 6:50."

"You said 6:45."

"Oh, I forgot I was dating a football coach. I guess five minutes early is late with you."

_Dating?_  They were going on  ** _a_**  date. They weren't  _dating._  What the hell had he gotten himself into with this woman? "Mhmhm," he murmured noncommittally as he stepped out onto the carport.

They walked to her truck in her driveway. Was he supposed to open the door for her? She was driving, and he didn't have the keys, so he supposed he couldn't. Did men even do that anymore? He didn't know. In the end, he just stood there awkwardly.

She unlocked and opened the front door of her pick-up - it was a huge, dirt-coated pick-up, a  _man's_  pick-up - and then climbed inside. He walked around to the passenger's seat and waited for her to lean over and unlock his door for him. When he climbed inside, she asked, "Where's your cowboy hat?"

"I don't own one."

The truck roared mightily and then leveled into a purr. Bonnie began to back out. "Why not?"

"Because I'm not a cowboy. Anymore."

Bonnie smiled. Her beautiful green eyes lit up. "You were a  _cowboy_?"

"Well," he smiled, a little pleased to have so easily impressed, "a ranch hand. When I was younger. Years ago. It's how I met my wife." Oh hell. He shouldn't be mentioning his wife on a date, should he? That had probably just killed the mood.

But Bonnie didn't make him feel at all awkward. In fact, she didn't miss a beat. "Was she a ranch hand, too?"

"No, her father owned the ranch. But she knew how to do everything a ranch hand does. And more."

"How long were you married?" she asked.

As Bonnie drove toward Fort Worth, Coach Taylor began to talk about the love of his life.

[*]

Dear Eric Taylor,

I don't know if your dad told you this yet or not, but he's going to make you be my pen pal. Sorry about that. You're probably not looking for extra homework while you're doing whatever you're doing on that ranch.

Why did you get sent to that ranch, anyway? I got sent to live with my aunt because I almost flunked out last semester. I'm a sophomore. Also, I think my mom has just been stressed to the max since my dad left us. She's started acting a little crazy, and I probably need a break from her. We're not exactly getting a long, not like she gets along with my teacher's pet of a little sister. Shelley's 12. Just wait until she hits high school, though. I bet she's going to be worse trouble than me. I don't guess you have any siblings? Your dad didn't mention any.

My dad pays child support, but not much. So my mom had to go back to work, and she doesn't really have any skills. She never went to college. So she's been waiting tables at night and working as a receptionist during the day. It hasn't been easy for her, and I guess I didn't help by being a stereotypical troubled teenage girl. Not that I'm that bad. Really, I'm not. Not as bad as YOU, apparently. I mean, you got sent to a RANCH. Isn't that where they send the ones that really need straightening out? What did you DO exactly?

I guess we're going to be next-door neighbors if they ever let you out of that place, so, when you do move back to Euless, don't mention to anyone anything I say in these letters, or I will have no choice but to end you. Is this not the dumbest English project you have ever heard of? What's the point? I suppose I could have written "All work and no play makes Tami a dull girl" 200 times and sent it to you for all the teacher will know. No one will read your letters but me, just so you know. I just have to show the teacher the envelopes and have my aunt sign off that I did the project. She doesn't actually read our letters. But write back something interesting anyway, because I'm bored here. But if you can't write something interesting, at least write SOMETHING. I don't get credit if you don't write back.

Here's something you can write about - The break ends and school starts Monday. So give me the 411. Who do I need to avoid? Who's cool? What teachers rock? Which ones suck? Any school traditions I should know about? What are the hang-outs around here? What's fun to do?

By the way, I don't know if your dad told you or not, but he's taking my Aunt Bonnie line dancing tonight. Or maybe she's taking him. It's hard to say. God knows she's in charge anyway, whatever happens. She thinks your dad is "totally hot." Her words, not mine.

Do you look like your dad?

Sincerely,

Tami Hayes


	7. Chapter 7

As Coach Taylor approached the Hayes house with a record tucked under his arm, he saw Tami slip an envelope into the mailbox and put up the flag. "Morning, Coach Taylor," she said as he slowed to a stop near the curb. "I was just mailing that letter to your son."

"Good. If he doesn't write back, you let me know, and I'll make sure he does." If the boy ever returned his calls, that was. Since returning to Euless, Coach Taylor had been communicating entirely through Warren, who claimed the boy was doing well, fulfilling his chores, keeping his nose clean, and settling in well with the other boys. If anything good came out of this, he supposed, it might be a better relationship with his father-in-law. Or a relationship period. Ivy would have been glad to see them working together for Eric's sake.

"Thanks," Tami replied. "Headed to work?" She had a backpack on her left shoulder and looked ready to head to school herself. It was only a half mile walk.

He nodded. "In a few. Are you leaving this early?"

"I have to get my schedule and walk the halls and learn where everything is. Figured I'd give myself some time."

"Well, you have any trouble, let me know, I'll get one of my boys to show you around."

She thanked him and headed off across the street. He went on to her front door and rang the bell. Bonnie, clipping a long, green earring on her right ear, answered. He held out the record. "Roger Miller," he said. "You liked that fellow who opened at Billy Bob's Saturday night, and he reminded me of Roger Miller so...thought you might like it."

She took the record from him. "Never heard of him."

"Really?"

"I'll have to unpack my old player and dust it off to give this a listen." She put the record down inside somewhere, but she didn't invite him in. In fact, she checked her watch, as if she was in a hurry.

He better make this quick. "Listen...uh...I want to apologize. Saturday night...That was probably the worst date you've ever been on."

He'd talked about his late wife almost the entire time when they weren't dancing. He hadn't  _planned_  to, but Bonnie had  _let_  him, and he hadn't been able to talk about her with anyone before now. In the beginning, people always looked nervous or worried when he mentioned Ivy, like they were afraid he was going to break down, so he'd stopped mentioning her, and then he'd thrown himself into his work to try to stop  _thinking_  about her. Head down, he had pressed on. But Bonnie hadn't seemed the least bit uneasy. She'd even asked questions. And the memories had just poured out, like a flood.

"The barbecue wasn't that bad," she said. "It was average. And you know I loved the opening act. And line dancing is loads of fun."

"I meant the company. But I'm hoping you'll give me a second chance to make a better impression."

She smiled, a little sadly. "Deacon, it's fine that you want to talk about your wife. It's perfectly normal. You were married to her over half your life. But I think maybe you're not ready to date. So if you want to just hang out with me sometime, talk about her, I'm happy to learn about her. Really. But you don't have to take me out."

"Umm..."

"My fee is $50 an hour."

"Oh."

She laughed and patted his shoulder playfully. "I'm  _kidding_  you. We're neighbors. No reason we can't be friends."

He smiled, a bit hesitantly. The thing was, he thought maybe he  _wanted_  to take her out. She was pretty. And interesting. She wasn't like any woman he knew at work, and he knew lots of women at work. That's what happened when you worked in a school. Bonnie was smart, but not in an obvious kind of way. And she was incredibly lively. Her liveliness made him feel a strange sense of discomfort and amusement, a not entirely unpleasant feeling he wouldn't mind recreating. "Okay then. Well..." He took a step back. "Hope you enjoy the record." He tipped his coach's hat to her and made his getaway.

[*]

School would be re-starting back in Euless today, and Eric was surprised to find he didn't entirely wish himself there. He didn't really want to sit through lectures where his mind would drift to painful memories of his mother or go to weekend parties and pretend he was enjoying them when, really, there was a yawning emptiness inside of him and a vague sense that he was playing a role, and playing it bigger and bigger every day to convince everyone he was fine.

Here, the work was a better distraction, and there was no one to pretend for. The other boys didn't expect him to be content with his life back home. None of them were with their own. And yet, for all their differences, there was something genuine in the comradery they shared, and after long hours of work on the ranch, the play actually  _meant_  something, even if it was as simple as a card game or a scrimmage, even if there were no girls to fool around with and no beer to drink. Eric didn't need bigger and bigger here, because when he was exhausted from mucking stalls and tossing hay and milking cows, and he finally had an hour to relax, the simplest things felt good and fun.

After a week and a half on the ranch, Eric had come to understand what Dante meant when he said they weren't  _afraid_  of Warren Maddox. These boys didn't fear Grandpa, they  _respected_  him.

Eric didn't come from the kind of broken, often addicted homes they'd come from - worlds of neglect and abuse. He thought his father criticized him too much, and he was still angry with the man for abandoning him here, but when Billy told him his own pa started calling him "a no good worthless lazy ass piece of shit" when Billy was just four, it made his own father's correction seem somewhat more mild and appropriate.

Grandpa Maddox never criticized the boys. He found things to complement them for, and he did it frequently, but he did mete out losses of privilege and extra chores for violations of his clearly stated rules. He played football with them, and also soccer – which Javier (Eric knew which boy was which, now) insisted on  _also_  calling football. After dinner - which was some of the best, freshest, straight-off-the-ranch food Eric had ever eaten – Grandpa Maddox would tell them funny stories about his own unsupervised and sometimes risky youth that had them all - Eric included - rolling with laughter.

Grandpa had intentionally roomed boys together he hadn't expected to get along, applied the discipline for the infraction of an individual to the room as a whole, and somehow made them a team. Dante and Billy fought often enough, but they never got physical, and sometimes when they got loud, they'd stop suddenly and grow quiet, listening for Grandpa Maddox. Then one or the other would apologize and they'd go back to their bunks or their chores.

Eric liked Dante best of all of the boys. He was a good center for their little makeshift football team, which played 5 on 5, and he was the most articulate of the boys. Eric felt most comfortable with him, because he didn't seem to belong to a rough and tumble world, though in fact he had. One day Eric asked him how he could tolerate Billy, let alone get along so well with him most of the time, given how racist the guy was.

"Billy is a product of his environment," Dante told Eric. "His parents are probably racist, and part of him is too. But, you know, he's got my back here. Because this is a  _new_ environment."

"If you say so."

"First book Warren made me read was  _Up from Slavery_ ," Dante told him. "He highlighted some things. One of the lines I think he wanted me to notice was when Booker T. Washington said - " He amazed Eric by reciting the passage word-for-word, "I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done."

"What was the first book my grandpa gave Billy?"

" _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_. Which he refused to read at first...but then he got into it. He could relate to what Malcolm said, about life being a hustle. He could relate a lot, actually, to being on the bottom. He grew up poorer than I did. You know, he didn't even have running water where he lived."

The first book Grandpa had assigned Eric was  _A Grief Observed_ , by C.S. Lewis. It was the journal of a man who had lost his wife. "I lost my mom, not my wife," Eric told him, and Grandpa had said, "But you aren't the only one who lost something. Your father lost his wife. Maybe you ought to have some inkling what that's like."

Eric would hike out to a quiet spot on the ranch and settle beneath the shade of one of the few trees to read the book, because sometimes it made him feel like crying. He didn't cry, but he was afraid he might, and damn if he was going to do it in front of any of these boys.

[*]

In the mid-afternoon, during what was called "the siesta," when the boys had an hour to drink sweet tea and relax wherever and however they chose, mail was distributed. On Tuesday, Eric received two letters. One was yet another from his father - cool and formal and recounting mundane events relating largely to his job and the upkeep of the house. Like the last two, it concluded with the wish that Eric would come to realize he was only trying to help the boy. And as with the last two, Eric did not reply.

The second letter was from a cheerleader he had dated briefly, and who was apparently under the impression that they were boyfriend and girlfriend, even though Eric had already been with two other girls since he'd last gone out with her. He supposed she'd gotten the address from his father.

Though he didn't reply to his father's letter, he replied to the girl's. He was less callous than he might have been several days ago, and, as gently as he knew how, he told her that she was a great girl, and he'd had a great time, but he wasn't in a good place to be in a relationship right now, and she deserved more, and she should probably stop writing him and concentrate on finding another boyfriend.

That night, he was fading off to sleep when Billy and Dante began arguing about the division of tomorrow's chores.

Billy said, "Predictable. Ya's lazy."

Dante replied, "That fits your stereotype, does it?"

"Ain't got nothin' to do with stereotypes. It's just a fact that I end up doin' most of the back breakin' shit," Billy muttered. "I don't hate black people ya know. I just hate ni -" He stopped himself. "Ya know."

"I don't hate white people, you know," Dante told Billy. "I just hate  _trash_."

Eric turned to the wall, hoping he didn't get dragged into the exchange.

"Ya sayin' I'm trash?"

"Being trash is a choice," Dante told him.

Billy rolled on his side and the top bunk creaked. Eric anticipated a serious blowout, but instead Billy just sounded thoughtful. "Used to be trash," he said. "Tryin' not to be. But what happens when we leave this ranch? Got to survive in the world's we's in."

"I'm not going back home," Dante replied. "Warren said I can stay on after my time is up if I want, work here in exchange for room and board and for tuition at UT-Brownsville. Bet he'd let you do it, too."

"I ain't gettin' into no UT-Brownsville."

"It's really not hard to get into. It's not exactly Yale."

"Dropped out of high school already," Billy told him.

"Then I bet Warren would let you stay and work until you get your GED and find a better job."

"Ain't gonna pass the GED."

"You aren't dumb," Dante told him. "I've seen the books you read. By choice."

"Hey, did ya get that girl's number at the indoor pool on Saturday?" Billy asked.

"Why do you always change the subject when someone tells you you aren't as dumb as you think you are?"

"Did ya get it or not?"

"I got it," Eric said. He rolled out of bed and pulled his jeans out from underneath his bunk and dug out the slip of paper. "One of you want it? I'm not interested." She'd come on a little too strongly for his tastes. He was getting tired of easy girls. He'd gone down that road after his mom died, and it hadn't done a damn thing to kill the pain. Now he just felt a little empty inside, and part of him felt guilty, too. That little speech his father had given him about respecting girls lingered in his mind, no matter how often he tried to purge it. He  _knew_  he should be more respectful, and that would probably be a lot easier if he started hanging out with girls  _worth_  respecting.

"How in the hell did  _you_  get it?" Dante asked.

"'Course Mr. All American got it," Billy said. "Look at the asshole."

"You want it?" Eric asked.

"Nah, I don't want it. She gave it to you. She don't want one of us callin' her up. Why don't  _you_  want it? Ya already got a steady girl back home?"

"Yeah," Eric lied, because that way he wouldn't have to explain why he wasn't interested in the girl at the pool.

"Well what she don't know won't hurt her," Billy reasoned.

Eric dropped his pants and rolled back into bed.

"Now that's just a lie," Dante said. "Ignorance is  _not_  bliss. I didn't know my father was addicted to drugs, but it sure hurt me anyway, when we lost the house."

"So you dealt 'em to get the house back?" Billy asked.

"That might not have been the wisest decision I ever made," Dante admitted.

Eric fell asleep that night, listening to them talk. The next morning, for the first time, he didn't wake up angry with his father. Instead, he woke up with tears in his eyes, from a dream of his mother pushing his two-year-old self on a swing. When he felt the wetness on his cheeks, he quickly pulled the sheet up to the tippy top of his head, before Dante or Billy could notice.

[*]

On Wednesday, when Grandpa distributed the mail, he slid a single envelope into Eric's hand. The return address, which was from Euless, had no name but indicated a girl's handwriting.

Eric went onto the back porch of the main house and settled into a rocking chair. He looked at the letter and sighed. Was his father giving out his address to  _every_  girl he'd fooled around with in the past six months?

Then he noticed the address. It was on his  _own_  street. Not only his own street, but the address was for the house right next to his. No one had lived in that house for months.

Curious, he quickly tore the letter open.


	8. Chapter 8

When Coach Taylor got home from work, Bonnie was leaning against his front door, the record in her hand. She smiled and held it out to him. "You were right. I do love Roger Miller."

"Keep it. I meant it as a gift."

She drew the record back. "Why have I never heard of him before?"

"I have no idea," Coach Taylor said. "You're just a whippersnapper, I guess."

She smiled. He thought she had a pretty smile, innocent and warm. "I'm not  _that_  much younger than you. And it's not like he's dead yet. I just didn't grow up with that music. Actually, I didn't grow up with  _any_  music other than hymns. My mother thought most music was of the devil. You can see why I had to become a psychologist. Well...a counselor."

"Why don't you just  _become_  a psychologist so you can  _call_  yourself one?" Coach Taylor asked.

"I'd have to go back to college and do another semester."

"So?"

"Bills to pay, you know." She nodded down at the record. "Are you one of those guys who hasn't come into the modern era? Do you even own a cassette player?"

"You know, cassette players are going to be going out of fashion soon."

Bonnie snorted. "What?"

"Haven't you seen the Compact Disc player?"

She titled her head at him and gave him a doubtful look. "Who's going to pay $800 for a machine so they can pay $25 for an album to play on it?"

"The price will come down eventually. Technology always does. Until then..." He tapped the slip cover over the Roger Miller record. "I'll stick to my record player."

"Well, I have an extensive tape collection, and I'm still going to be listening to those tapes when I'm eighty."

"You, uh...want to come in for a drink?" Coach Taylor made the offer tenuously.

"Thank you for the invite," she said, "but I have to meet a counseling client in fifteen minutes. Tami's going to have dinner ready for us when I get home. I'm making her pull her weight around the house."

"Good idea."

"How's your son?"

"Good," Coach Taylor lied. The truth was, he'd written Eric the day after Christmas, and the day after that, and the day after that, and he  _still_  had not written back. Nor had his son returned any of his calls. He'd spoken with Warren about the boy three times, and that was still his only source of information at the moment.

"Well, see you around," Bonnie said, and waved her fingers in farewell before she began to walk past him.

"Hey," he called.

She turned.

"You...uh...why don't y'all come over for dinner tomorrow night? I'll grill out."

"Sounds good," she told him, "but Tami hit the ground running. She's already got a part in the winter musical. They're having their first rehearsal tomorrow, and it's extra long. They're ordering pizza."

"Drama, huh?"

"Yeah. Probably because I told her not to be a cheerleader."

"What's wrong with being a cheerleader?" he asked.

"Nothing. I just don't want her in with that crowd. Football players, you know."

Coach Taylor frowned. "I was a football player. I  _coach_  football."

"And I'm sure you're great at it," she said, "but, come on, you know how those boys are."

"There are some good boys on my team. Finest boys you'll ever meet."

"I'm not insulting  _you_ ," she insisted. "I'm not insulting  _anyone_. I'm just trying to look out for my niece."

"What if I told you three of my players are going to be  _in_  that musical?"

"Really?" Bonnie asked skeptically.

He nodded. "It's winter. They don't have football until spring training. And some of them have good voices."

"Where I grew up a football player wouldn't be caught dead in a musical."

"We live in interesting times," he said. He was enjoying the surprise on her face.

"Are they mostly...you know...bench warmers?"

"One's the first string quarterback who replaced my son when I took him off the team last season. Mo McArnold."

"Tami mentioned him. She  _didn't_  mention he was in the musical, though." She sounded suspicious. "You had him show her around school on her first day, didn't you?"

"Yes. Now hold your horses for this..." He held out a hand and placed it gently on her shoulder as though to steady her. "But he also just got inducted into the National Honor Society."

"I didn't say football players couldn't be  _smart_ ," she insisted. " _You're_  clearly no dummy."

He was surprised by the complement, if that's what it was, and his hand fall free. "Invitation still stands. For dinner tomorrow, I mean. Even if it's just you."

She smiled - he thought - hesitantly, and he wished he could take it back. She'd already made it clear she didn't want to date him, and that had probably sounded like a date request. "But you're probably busy."

"Not really," she said. "What should I bring?"

"Bottle of wine?" he suggested. He didn't even know if she drank wine. She'd had one beer at the Honky Tonk. One. And she'd insisted on paying half the check.

"Red or white?"

"I'm making steak."

"I'll bring red, then. See you at..."

"Six?"

"Six," she repeated. She waved with her fingers and sashayed off. It was a few second before he caught himself watching her and shuffled inside. The phone was ringing when he entered the house.

Coach Taylor picked it up in the kitchen. He'd barley said hello when Eric's young but strong voice burst over the line. "You're dating?"

"What?"

"Mom's not a year in her grave, and you're dating?"

"First of all, your mother died  _over_  a year ago. Second of all, who told you I'm dating?"

"That crazy new neighbor girl you gave my address to!"

"Tami is not crazy. She seems perfectly stable to me. She could use a little self-discipline, and she could be more respectful to her elders, but she does not strike me as  _crazy._ I took her aunt out once. That does  _not_  mean I'm dating. And even if I were, you know, I don't think your mother would mind. I think she'd want me to...to get back out there."

"Back out there. She'd want you to  _get back out there_. Where's  _there?_  Who the hell is this woman?"

"Don't swear when you speak to me." Coach Taylor supposed Warren hadn't worked the disrespect out of him quite yet. "She's the neighbor. She's a counselor."

"Like at the high school?"

"No. She work's at the Women's Center."

Eric suddenly sounded a little less angry and a little more curious. "How old is she?"

"I don't know. It's not exactly polite to ask a woman that question. She's younger than me. Maybe by eight years, I'd guess."

"Robbing the cradle, are you?" his son spat.

"Eric - "

"- Is that why you really sent me away? Because I was throwing a monkey wrench in your love life?"

"Do you not recall driving while intoxicated? Do you not recall tearing up a corn field? Do you not recall appearing in court? Do you not recall the incidences of public intoxication that preceded your DUI conviction? Do you not recall any of that, son?"

On the other end of the line there was a heavy sigh.

"I am trying to do the right thing here, Eric. I know I haven't been an ideal father this past year. But I am  _trying_."

"Pretty easy from a distance, huh?"

"Do you hate it there that much?"

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. "It's not quite as bad as I thought it was going to be." What Deacon Taylor heard was that Eric recognized he needed to be there. Somehow, on some level, he recognized he  _needed_  it. But he wasn't going to admit that directly. Instead, Eric changed the subject. "Did you give out my address to Kimberly Cole?"

"She called the house asking for you. So, yeah, I gave it to her."

"Did you ever consider I didn't want her to have my address?"

"Did you ever consider that you can't deflower a girl and then just walk away from her without consequences? Without her expecting something of you?"

"I did not  _deflower_  her, okay?" Eric said. Sometimes his voice could sound so much like a man's, and sometimes it could still sound like a whiny teenager's. "Kimberley was  _far_  from being flowered when I went out with her."

Coach Taylor suppressed a laugh. He tried to sound sternly calm. "Well, the girl clearly likes you, and she clearly didn't mean much to you. In the future it would behoove you not to fool around with girls who don't mean anything to you."

"So does this counselor chick  _mean_  something to you then?" Eric asked sarcastically.

Deacon could feel himself growing angry, but he fought back the instinctive reaction. Through clinched teeth, he said. "I told you. I've taken her out  _once_. We haven't done anything. At all. Except talk. And eat. And dance." He waited for a long while, and when the silence persisted, he asked, "Eric?"

Very quietly, his son said, "Don't you miss Mom?"

The pain in his son's voice made him choke, because it was such a strange echo of his own. "Every day. You have no idea how much." Deacon slumped down in the chair by the kitchen desk and rested his hand on his forehead. "Why do you think I've been such a mess?"

"The only time you talk about her is to tell me how disappointed she'd be in me."

"I don't think that's true."

"It  _is_  true," Eric muttered.

"Then I'm sorry. I don't know how you could have thought I don't miss your mother. She was my life. I've been just as rudderless without her as you've been. But I'm trying to get anchored. And Grandpa Maddox is trying to anchor you. That's what we're all trying to do here, son."

"A'ight." It was almost whisper, but Coach Taylor heard it nonetheless. "I gotta go, Dad. It's supper time."

"Eric," he called, afraid the boy was going to hang up without another word.

"What?"

"I..." He'd said he'd loved the boy when he dropped him off, and Eric had acted like he hadn't even spoken the words. He wasn't sure he could take that again. "I want you to write that girl back. She's trying to make a fresh start here, bring her grades up, and it's a school project."

"Guess it would also give you an in with her aunt, huh? To help her out?"

"Eric, that's not why - "

"- I gotta go." There was a click on the other end of the line.

Coach Taylor sighed and rubbed his forehead before letting the receiver drop into the cradle.


	9. Chapter 9

Tami had both dreaded and welcomed starting at a new school. She feared not fitting in, but she was also glad to have a chance to start over where nobody knew her, where rumors weren't circulating that she was the "easy" girl who had given it up to an older guy at a party.

Tami didn't dislike living with Aunt Bonnie nearly as much as she had hated living with her strict but ever-busy mother. When their father took off over two years ago, Mama had become bitter and angry, and sometimes Tami thought she took that anger out on her. She wasn't abusive, not physically, but she could be downright mean. There were times Tami had thought of saying, "I can see why Dad left you," but then she bit her tongue. Because of course Dad hadn't just left Mama. He'd left Shelley and Tami, too. He'd never been a very present father, but now Tami didn't even know where he lived. She felt orphaned. Aunt Bonnie took an interest in her – and annoying level of interest – but an interest nonetheless.

Aunt Bonnie's frankness and insistence on discussing everything openly made her uncomfortable at times – in fact, it could be downright  _mortifying_  – but it also made her think, and, on some subconscious level, it reassured her that she was not alone. She could try to hide, of course, but Aunt Bonnie would barrel down her defenses.

So when she walked in the kitchen door today at 5:30 p.m., following an after-school rehearsal for the musical, and Aunt Bonnie pulled a lasagna out of the oven and asked, "Who was that boy who just dropped you off?" Tami ignored her instinct to reply, "None of your business."

Instead, she dropped her backpack on the kitchen floor in the area designated for shoes and coats and said, "Mo McArnold. He's a junior. He's in my choir class." Bowie High _required_  a fine arts elective. She couldn't play an instrument and didn't like to draw, so choir it was. The Intermediate Choir class contained a mix of sophomore and juniors, and one very good freshman. "And he's in the musical, so he just gave me a ride home after practice."

Normally she walked, but Mo had volunteered to drive her, claiming that "it looks like rain," even though the sky was as clear as a crystal ball. Though Tami could guess his motives were not entirely innocent and helpful, she had agreed. He'd shown her around school the first day and encouraged her to audition for the musical. He had a nice, pure signing voice. He talked a little too much, and a little too fast, and he seemed to have trouble staying still – something on his body was always bouncing - usually a knee - but he was cute.

"And he's also the quarterback of the Bowie Boars?" Aunt Bonnie asked with a raised eyebrow. "That's what Coach Taylor told me."

"You've been spending an awful lot of time with Coach Taylor lately." Tami thought that would deflect the conversation from Mo. If she didn't deflect it, Aunt Bonnie was going to pry, and then she'd have to tell her aunt that Mo had invited her to the winter dance, and she'd said, "You don't even know me really" and he'd said, "Well, I want to  _get_  to know you" and she'd said, "I'll think about it." She liked Mo, but after being shrugged off by the older boy to whom she'd tossed away her virginity, she wasn't sure she trusted herself around boys. But she  _did_  want to go to the dance. Still, thinking about dating Mo had made her think about what she'd thrown away, and that had made her feel a hollow ache in the pit of her stomach. She still felt it.

"Well, we're friends," answered Bonnie as she retrieved a spatula.

"Friends, huh? Is that why he was throwing that empty bottle of wine in the recycling the morning after he had you over for dinner? Because you shared a  _friendly_  bottle of wine?"

"Yes, precisely."

Tami leaned her elbows on the counter and smirked. "And is that why he keeps bringing you records to listen to? Because he wants to be your  _friend_?"

"That's exactly why he keeps bringing me records to listen to!"

"Auntie, I'm way younger than you, but even I'm not that naïve."

"There's really nothing going on between us," she insisted.

"So he's never tried to kiss you?"

"Not yet." Bonnie flushed. "I mean, no! He's not going to. We're just  _friends_!"

Tami chuckled and said, "I'll set the table."

As Bonnie cut the lasagna with a spatula, she told her, "There's a letter for you on the coffee table from Second Chances Ranch in Weslaco. I'm betting it's your penpal."

After dinner, Tami settled into the corner of the couch to read her letter. She opened it expecting to find a forced, cursory reply that he'd been made to write by his father or grandfather. Instead, she found two handwritten pages covered front and back with a clear, crisp, black-ink cursive.

_January 14, 1983_

_Dear Tami Hayes,_

_Why did I get sent to the ranch? Well it's an interesting story that involves the corruption of local authorities, a one-eyed man who walks with a limp, and the world's third most valuable emerald. I don't think I can trust you with the details just yet._

Tami burst out laughing and then covered her mouth, because she didn't want her aunt to overhear and ask her what was so funny. She read the first paragraph again and then continued the letter:

_Sorry your dad took off on you. What an asshole. My mom died last year, but she didn't do it on purpose. She died a couple of weeks before Christmas. I'd already bought her a gift, just the day before. A pair of earrings. It's still sitting in my bottom desk drawer. I don't know why I kept it like that._

It was such a weird swing, to go from laughing to feeling her eyes moisten in an instant.

_You said to write something interesting because you're bored. You think you're bored? Try living on a ranch in the middle of Nowhere, Texas with nothing but a bunch of misfit guys. No school, no Friday night lights, and not a girl in sight. And get this – NO TELEVISION._

_My grandpa makes us work until we want to collapse. It's not that it's that many hours of work, it's just that it's physical, you know? At least our only school work is twenty minutes of math practice a day and reading one book a week. That's a lot of books. But I actually have a lot more free time than I expected, and it can get real boring real fast._

_So I find ways to kill the time. I got a regular football thing going. We've got assigned teams and a game schedule and stats and everything now. My grandpa is the ref. I'm the captain of my team. And the quarterback. And the safety. And the punter. I play cards with the guys. I'm getting real good at Texas Hold 'Em. We bet with pebbles because grandpa won't allow us to gamble with money. Not that we have any money here. He buys all one movie ticket a week and two large popcorns to share. No soda, though. Just water out of the fountain. We go swimming at indoor pool on Sundays. I sleep more than I used to, and I read more than I used to. And now I'm even writing to some girl I've never even met. That's how BORED I am._

_I'm going to trust you when you say no one actually sees these letters. Because if this letter ends up circulating around school, I'll have no choice but to – I'm going to quote you here – "end you."_

_No, I don't have any other siblings. Not that got born anyway. Buy my mom named every single one of her miscarriages – Emma, Aaron, and Dallas. Wish I'd gotten Dallas. That's way cooler than Eric._

_No, yours is not the dumbest English project I've ever heard of. Last semester, we had to break in small groups and edit a Shakespeare play down to 35 minutes and then perform it. Do you know how hard it is to cut a play down to 35 minutes? Me and my group felt like the teacher was just asking for it at that point, so we cut out lines in Hamlet in a way that made everything sound really sexually suggestive. The students were laughing from the first minute, but it took her awhile to catch on. Then she started turning red and looking mad but we kept going. She finally cut off our performance fifteen minutes in and sent my whole group to the principal's office._

Tami chuckled.

_It wasn't my finest moment, but, in a way, it was. It took a lot of work to make sense of that play enough to cut it to make it sound so lewd. I now know Hamlet forward and backward._

_I'd answer all your questions, but you'll probably have been in school two weeks by the time you get this. You already know which of your teachers suck and which don't. As for the cool kids – just ask who used to hang with Eric Taylor and you'll know who's cool._

_Actually, don't. I was hanging with some real assholes my last semester in Euless. You know, only one guy from my team has called me since I got sent here? Mo McAronold. And that was to ask me questions about a couple of plays I used to run. I guess I wasn't as popular as I thought I was. Out of sight, out of mind. Not that guys are exactly chatty phone types to begin with. I just thought…I don't know what I thought._

_As for hang outs – obviously the football games and football parties, but it's winter now so that's over. The basketball team has parties but I hear those are kind of lame. DQ is the place to go after school to hang but you have to buy something – at least a small Coke or something – or the manager will chase you off. There's a big winter dance almost everyone goes to. It's no Homecoming, but it's still kind of a thing. Then there's the Sadie Hawkins dance in March and prom in late April. We only have a senior prom, but sometimes seniors take juniors or sophomores._

_Do I look like my dad? I don't know. People say I'm built like my dad, but I have my mom's eyes, nose, and smile._

_So I think I answered all your questions. Now I've got one for you - how many times has my dad taken your aunt out now? What do they do? What does your aunt look like? Is she pretty? How young is she?_

_Got to jet –_

_Eric A. Taylor_

Maybe this ridiculous pen pal project was going to be more interesting than Tami had anticipated. She went to her room, grabbed a piece of notebook paper from her backpack, and began writing.


	10. Chapter 10

Coach Taylor sat with his feet up on the coffee table, a microwaved Hungry Man T.V. dinner on his lap, and the television on at a low hum. He'd stopped eating at the kitchen table. It felt awkward to sit at that four-person table alone, and the television was company of sorts. When he heard the rapping at the kitchen door, he put the half empty meal down and made his way there. He felt a strange but not unpleasant nervousness when he saw Bonnie's red hair through the window on the door.

Coach Taylor had enjoyed their conversation over wine the other night – he'd made an effort to ask about her interests and not talk quite so much about his late wife - and he hoped she might change her mind about this idea she seemed to have that he wasn't ready to date. He certainly wasn't ready to replace Ivy, but Bonnie was pretty, and he was a man, and it had been a long time since…well, he was trying not to think about that.

When he opened the door, the first words out of her mouth were, "I really need a man."

He smiled. "Is that so?"

"To kill a spider," she clarified.

"Oh."

"Would you?"

He stepped down onto the carport, closing the kitchen door behind himself. "I'm surprised at you, Bonnie. You seem so self-sufficient. I didn't think you needed a man for anything."

She smiled sheepishly and her green eyes sparkled. "Well, but, it's a  _really_  big one."

It  _was_  a really big one, and it was on the kitchen counter. Coach Taylor asked for a glass to trap it in so he could take it outside.

"Well I don't want an outdoor pet. Aren't you just going to smash it?"

"You don't want me to smash this kind," he assured her. "It probably has dozens of babies on its back. They'll go flying everywhere and start crawling all over the place."

"Ewww." She got him a glass. When the spider was set free in the back yard, she said, "I actually could use a man for something else, too."

He smiled and took a step closer. "Yeah? What's that?"

"You can fix a leaky faucet, right?"

He bit down on his sigh so that it sounded more like a "Mhmmm." He ran a hand across is mouth and said, "You got tools, or do I need to get mine?"

Two home repair tasks later, Bonnie offered him a beer, and they settled onto the couch in the living room. "Where's Tami?" he asked.

"Rehearsal again. Who knew high school theater was so demanding!"

"And they say I run  _my_  boys too hard, just because I sometimes call them out for an extra emergency practice. You know, when she gets all the way to the dress rehearsal, those things can go to ten at night."

Bonnie sat sideways on the couch to face him. She'd already shed her shoes and socks, and now she pulled her legs up, bent, onto the couch. Her colorful, loose skirt came to just below her knees. She had shapely legs, though Coach Taylor tried not to look at them for more than second. Or two. Or six. "My niece got a really long letter from your son. Four pages, front and back. She wouldn't let me read it, but I was impressed he wrote that much. Thanks for making him do that."

"I didn't really make him. I figured he'd send a paragraph. Although…his mother was a writer. She had a few poems and short stories published in some outdoor living magazines. She was very talented with words." Damn. He was talking about Ivy again. "And Eric has a way with words," he hastened, "when he  _wants_  to. He won an extemporaneous speech competition in junior high. But then…football got more demanding in high school, so he couldn't do the speech team anymore. But four pages…to a stranger. Hmmm." He sipped his beer. "He hardly ever says a word to  _me._ "

"Why do you think that is?" Bonnie asked.

Coach Taylor shrugged. "I guess that's just the way it is between teenage boys and their fathers."

"Is that how it was with your father?"

He glanced down at the tan and white cloth cushions of the couch. "Should I be lying down on this couch? Should you have a notepad?"

She laughed. "I'm just curious."

"My father kicked me out of the house when I was sixteen. I had to make my own way after that."

"Why?" she asked with wide-eyed surprise.

"We were poor. We fought a lot. He drank a lot. I don't guess he kicked me out so much as  _drove_  me out. I ended up living at my coach's house until I finished high school and went to college. Then I got injured and lost my football scholarship after a year, dropped out of college, went to work on Eric's grandfather's ranch. Stole his daughter out from under his nose, and…" Damn. He was talking about Ivy again. "Anyhow, here I am."

Bonnie slapped his knee lightly. It was something she did when they were sitting and talking and she had a sudden idea. "Hey, you ever think of writing Eric a letter? I mean, maybe that's the way he's most comfortable communicating. In writing."

"I've written him three letters. He hasn't answered a single one."

"Oh. Well, don't give up on him. Try calling him more often, maybe." She put a hand on his knee. "All you can do is keep trying."

Coach Taylor looked at her hand on his knee. Then he leaned in and kissed her. He liked the feel of her lips. Soft and warm and feminine.

But she didn't open them. Instead, Bonnie took her hand off his knee and pulled away.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I guess I misread...I just thought…."

"It's all right."

He stood up. "Thanks for the beer." He clunked the mostly empty bottle down on the end table.

"Deacon, listen - "

"I'll show myself out." He hastened to the front door and had his hand on the knob before she was off the couch.

[*]

Grandpa Maddox always distributed the mail during the afternoon siesta, because it came at noon. He extended an envelope to Eric. Eric recognized the address. Another letter from that new neighbor girl. He hiked out again to settle under his favorite mesquite tree to read it. There weren't many trees on the ranch, and he'd claimed this one as his own.

_January 18, 1983_

_Dear Eric A. Taylor,_

_So what's the A stand for? Absalom? Agamemnon? Ahab? Aristotle? It must be something pretty fantastic since you felt the burning need to include the initial in your signature. Does it stand for Awesome?_

Eric felt a mixture of amusement and irritation at Tami's opening line. A small lizard scurried past his foot, paused, and looked up at him. "Isn't it a little cold for you to be out?" he asked it, and it ran off. It wasn't that cold, really. He had on a long-sleeve, flannel shirt, and that was enough. He'd expected January to be cooler. May, June, and July on the ranch were really going to suck. At least he'd be home in Euless by August for summer training.

He continued reading:

_I'd tell you my middle name, but I don't have one. My mom once said that way I can make my maiden name my middle name when I get married, and I said, "Who says I'm ever getting married?" and she said, "Well, that's just what women do." I almost said, "Yeah, look how it turned out for you," but I bit my tongue. My aunt Bonnie's not married and she seems to have a perfectly happy life. She has her counseling job and gets to do whatever she wants without answering to anyone or anything. She plays recreational tennis and has her flower garden and always has guys wanting to go out with her. Of course, she also has this creepy neighbor on the other side of us - NOT your dad, the other guy - ogling her all the time, even though he's totally married and his wife is pregnant. What a jerk._

_I'm sorry about your mom dying. She sounds like she was a real special woman. Your dad talks about her a lot, at least to my aunt._

What? His father talked about Mom a lot? Really? And to some random woman?

_Sorry you have to do such hard work on the ranch, but I bet you stay in good shape that way. Plus you're probably learning real skills. Unlike what I'm learning in Biology this year which is a lot of stupid detail that I'm never, ever going to use in my actual life. I got a D in this class last semester, so I really need to study. I've been trying to study at rehearsals when I don't have to be on stage, but Mo McArnold keeps bugging me and interrupting me. Not that I really mind. I mean, he's kind of funny and cute. He asked me to the winter dance. Think I should say yes? Is he cool? You're friends, right? I mean, he's on the football team._

Eric was not close with Mo. He had no strong reason to dislike the guy, but he didn't really like him either. He just found Mo to be vaguely annoying, because he talked a lot. He had been an okay player, a decent back-up, but now he was filling Eric's shoes as the first-string quarterback. Mo had become a better player over the last few games of the last season, all of which Eric had been forced to watch from the bench. Eric was assuming that he would step back into the first-string position when he returned to Euless, but what if he didn't? What if Mo trained on his own and got really good between now and summer training?

_I totally promise no one will see your letters. I don't want you showing mine around either. So it's sort of like a deterrent, you know, a policy of mutually assured destruction, which I'm learning about in Civics, by the way. I might not even have to worry about whether or not to go with Mo to the winter dance. We might have all gone up in a mushroom cloud of smoke by then. At least, that's what the Mrs. Hardy seems to be trying to convince us of._

_Sorry to hear about your mom's miscarriages. My mom had one but it was probably for the best. She got pregnant right before my dad took off. That would have been super hard, a baby and me and my sister and not much money AND no dad. My dad didn't even send us a Christmas card last year. I'm not even sure he's alive. He was a truck driver, so, you know, I was used to not seeing him much. He was on the road all the time. But it's weird, him not even coming to visit. Ever. I know he was never the best dad, but I didn't know he didn't give even one tiny shit about me or my sister._

Eric shifted against the mesquite tree and coughed. Maybe it was the dust from the ground. Maybe it was the letter, but his eyes felt a little irritated.

_I wish I could have seen your Sexy Hamlet play. I could use some comic relief in my English class. Talk about BORING. Mr. McMullen loves to hear himself talk, but half the time he doesn't even make any sense. I think he assigned this pen pal thing so he can claim he made us fulfill the district-wide writing requirement but then he doesn't have to read and grade papers._

_Sorry your teammates forgot about you down there on that ranch. I'll kick Mo's ass and make him call you more often._

Shit, he didn't want Mo McArnold calling him on the phone.

_So I tried out the happening DQ hang-out you suggested. Me and this other new girl Kimberly are kind of friends now, and we went there to get a chocolate dipped and check out the guys. Do you know if Shane O'Kelly has a girlfriend? Kimmy wants to know. I guess he's like a running back, or something?_

_So, now to your questions. My aunt looks kind of like Marilyn Monroe, but with red hair instead of blonde and green eyes and her hair is longer and curlier. She's 35. Or maybe 36. She could be 34. I don't know exactly. How old is your dad? My aunt says they aren't dating. And it's true they haven't gone out-out since they went line dancing at Billy Bob's, but she's been to his house for dinner once and had him over here once for dinner and they sure do seem to hang out and talk a lot. Although I haven't seen him around in a couple of days, and lately he just walks by me really quickly in the halls, with his head bent down, instead of saying, "Hello, Miss Hayes." I kind of wonder if something happened between him and my aunt and he's embarrassed now. Pretty sure it wasn't S-E-X, though, because my aunt is always telling me never to have sex with a boy who isn't serious about me and who I haven't dated for at least 22 weeks. Don't ask where she got the 22. I have no earthly idea._

_Okay, let me throw out some questions so you have something to write back about –_

_1\. Favorite rock band._

_2\. Favorite book._

_3\. Favorite subject in school. BESIDES football or P.E._

_4\. Favorite sport BESIDES football._

_5\. Why did you REALLY get sent to the ranch?_

_I expect every question to be answered in my next letter._

_Sincerely,_

_Tami No-Middle-Name Hayes_

Eric held the letter between his knees and watched his little lizard friend return and stare at him again. "Yeah, yeah," he told the lizard. "I'm gonna answer her damn questions."

The creature scurried away.


	11. Chapter 11

As Coach Taylor washed his dinner dishes, he calculated the cost of the new Bowie High baseball equipment in his head. The funds were insufficient. As Athletic Director, he was going to have to tell Coach Harris the team needed to do a fundraiser, and Coach Harris was going to claim football got preferential treatment, and then Coach Taylor was going to point out that football brought in three times as much money in ticket and concession sales, and around and around they'd go. The knock on the door was at first a welcome relief from this worry, until he saw Bonnie's head through the window. He'd been trying to avoid her ever since his failed pass.

Deacon switched off the water and made his slow, reluctant way to the door. When he opened it, his eyes fell to her steel-tipped cowgirl boots.

"Things have been awkward," she said. "I don't want them to be awkward."

Deacon rubbed his chin but didn't raise his eyes from the boots.

"Let me be frank. You tried to kiss me, I pulled away, now you're embarrassed and you're avoiding me. I don't like you avoiding me. I'd like us to be friends."

Deacon's feelings shifted from embarrassment to irritation. He finally looked up to meet her eyes. "Since you're being frank, may I?"

"Please."

"I'm a little confused by your signals."

"How so?" she asked, her green eyes searching his.

"First, you ask me to take you dancing - "

"- You asked me on that date," she interrupted him.

He thought about it. So he had. He hadn't meant to, and she'd ended up making the plans, but, technically, he  _had_  been the one to say he'd take her to Billy Bob's. "And I know I wasn't the best date," he continued without acknowledging her point. "I understand that. But then you show up at my doorstep - "

"- To return a record you had lent me."

"And later you came to my house for dinner. And you brought wine."

"Because you invited me and  _told_  me to bring wine."

That was also true. For some reason, he had it in his head that Bonnie had been pursuing him, but when she laid it out like that..."Well, but I thought you had a good time at that dinner."

"I  _did_  have a good time," Bonnie said with a pleasant smile. "You grill an excellent steak."

"You talk to me every morning when we're heading out for work. You smile and laugh. And then you asked me to do things around your house, and you gave me a beer - "

"- A beer is not an open invitation to make out."

"You put a hand on my knee," he told her.

She nodded. "I did. I was trying to comfort you because you seemed upset about your son."

Deacon leaned against the door frame. "It's been a long time since I've done this. It's possible my judgment is rusty. But I really thought you were interested. You  _seemed_  like you were."

"May I come in?"

He stepped back and gestured with his hand. She took a seat at the kitchen table and he closed the door behind her before sitting down at the table with her.

"I do like you, Deacon. You seem like a nice, stable guy. Steady job. Excellent manners. Articulate. You're probably fairly intelligent, too. And I'm not going to pretend you aren't handsome. Under other circumstances, I'd have responded to your advance in a heart beat. But I don't want to be that woman."

"What woman?"

"That stop gap woman. That one who fills a temporary void between your wife and whoever you end up marrying three to five years from now. I'm happy to be your friend. I just don't want to be  _that_  woman. You're not as ready to move on as you imagine you are. And I just had a serious heart break not that long ago. I think I need to date casually for awhile."

"I'm...I'm very confused, Bonnie. You don't want to date me because you think it would only be temporary, but you think you need to date casually for awhile?"

Bonnie seemed to consider this. "It doesn't make much sense, does it?"

"No."

"Hmmm...It all made sense in my head before it came out of my mouth."

Deacon chuckled. He studied her. "Maybe  _you're_  the one who's not ready to move on?"

"He really did a number on me," Bonnie admitted. "He asked me to marry him. I had the ring on my finger. I was about to call everyone and let them know when I found out he was cheating on me. I'm just glad I didn't go bragging about the engagement and then have to take it all back."

"Well, if you want someone to rebound off of, I'm your man. I can be as casual as you want. I'll make it easy for you to move on."

"No you won't," Bonnie said. "You're too much of a gentleman for that. You'll be respectful and courtly, and there's at least a 55% chance I'll end up falling in love with you. But there's a 95% chance I'll end up being the in-between woman, and I just don't want to risk another heart break right now. I'd rather date a man I know I have no chance of falling for."

"That's absurd."

"It makes sense to me."

"Where do you get these ridiculous percentages?" he asked.

"From experience. Both mine and that of my clients."

Deacon put his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes. "Then why did you go out with me in the first place?"

"Because I assumed you were the sort of guy I'd have no chance of falling for. I mean, you're a football coach. And I don't even  _watch_  sports."

"I thought you played tennis."

"I  _play_  it. I don't  _watch_  it. And I usually fall for younger, less reserved, more creative men."

"I'm creative. I create new football plays all the time."

"But then you were a good dancer," she continued, "and you didn't talk about football at all, and I had a better time than I expected. And then I had an even better time at dinner at your house."

"So date me," he said with exasperation. "Throw the dice. Take the gamble."

"I'm sorry, I can't. But I really hope we can keep being neighbors and friends. Can we?"

"Well, unless one of us moves, I think the neighbor part is inevitable."

"Can we be  _friends_?" she asked.

He sighed. "If that's what you want."

"It's what I want."

He nodded. "Okay then. May I get you something to drink?"

"If I ask for a glass of wine, are you going to assume that means I'm asking for something else?"

"I'll get you the wine." He stood and pulled a bottle from a cupboard. "But I do want something in exchange."

"What's that?" Bonnie asked cautiously.

"I'm going to try calling my son tonight. I want your advice on how to talk to him."

[*]

Another week passed at Bowie High. Tami was growing very busy between her studies and preparation for the musical, so she was somewhat glad to find her aunt had a late counseling session when she got home from school on Friday. She wanted to decompress alone, without Aunt Bonnie chattering at her on and off all evening.

"There's leftovers in the fridge," Aunt Bonnie said as she double-checked the contents of her purse before heading out for her session.

"That's okay. Mo and I grabbed something at the DQ after rehersal."

"Oh. Are you two dating?"

"Not officially," Tami said.

"But unofficially?" Aunt Bonnie asked.

"I don't know. We're going to the winter dance next Saturday."

"Be careful, Tami. Don't - "

"- I know. I'm not rushing into sex again." Aunt Bonnie knew about the boy she'd lost her virginity to, even though not even Shelley knew that. Somehow, her aunt had needled the story out of her. "I promise. I've learned from that mistake."

Aunt Bonnie nodded. "Well, I should be back by nine. I think I saw a letter from your penpal in that pile of mail on the counter."

When Bonnie had closed the kitchen door, Tami eased the letter out from beneath her aunt's new  _Reader's Digest_. She retreated to her bedroom, shut the door, and lay on her stomach across the pink, blue, and white quilted comforter that covered her bed. Shelley had made the comforter for her before she left, in her middle school quilting club.

Tami unfolded the two sheets of college-ruled notebook paper.

_January 24, 1983_

_Dear Tami Nameless Hayes,_

_So, in other words, your aunt looks NOTHING like Marilyn Monroe? Because if what you described is "like Marilyn Monroe," then I must be the spitting image of Robert Redford._

_The A doesn't stand for anything. It's just an A. Didn't see that one coming, did you?_

_Do you think maybe you don't want to get married because your parents' marriage sucked? Because I'm pretty sure you can still garden and play tennis and be a counselor or whatever even if you're married. I've always assumed I'll get married one day. My parents seemed to like being married, and my dad really does NOT know how to live alone. He had to learn to cook after she died and didn't know what anything cost at the grocery store and just had to figure out a lot of stuff. I don't think he had any idea what to do with me, for one. So I figure a wife is nice to have, but I'm going to live on my own for awhile first. "Sow my wild oats," as my grandpa says, maybe get married when I'm like 30 and I have a good income._

_By then, I should be playing professional football, or if I can't make it at that I'll be a sportscaster. I'm going to take Public Speaking when I repeat my junior year next year to help with that. Journalism, too. I'll probably be the sports editor for the newspaper. Athletics (football), of course. I can do all three electives now that they're adding that extra seventh period. Did you know they were doing that next year? They're going to take away our 15 minute break after third period, add 30 minutes to the school day, and shorten the passing time to 4 minutes. 4 minutes. You better run. The seniors are lucky. They'll get out before it all happens._

_No offense, but your dad sounds like a real asshole. Sorry you got a dad like that. I used to think my dad was an asshole because he woke me up real early to run plays and stuff, and he's pretty demanding about football, and he sent me to this ranch. But I guess at least he never took off on me like your dad, or called me worthless shit like Billy's dad does, or beat me like Javier's dad did, or gambled away the life savings like Tiny's dad did, or anything like that. (Those are all guys at the ranch.) I actually talked to him on the phone yesterday and it was kind of cool. We didn't fight or anything. We talked about what we miss about my mom. Oh, and he said he's decided not to date your aunt, that he thinks it's better just to be friends. So I hope she's not too disappointed. I hope he let her down gently._

Tami laughed at these last few lines, because they did not at all match the version of events as her aunt had related them a few days ago.

_About your teacher Mr. McMullen - yeah, he rambles. I had him for freshman English. Sniff his coffee cup sometime. Just do it. Did you know he used to be a Jesuit priest? He renounced his vows to get married. She left him five years later._

_You should warn your friend that Shane O'Kelly's got the clap, but don't you DARE tell her you heard it from me. Just say you heard a rumor or something._

_So the answers to your questions..._

_1\. Favorite band? I don't know. I like Journey and the Stones and Van Halen. U2's good too._

_2\. Favorite book? The Bible. Just kidding. I only said that so I don't get hit by a thunderbolt. Probably The Stand. Stephen King. I hear he's coming out with a new one soon about a car that murders people. I'm totally getting that._

_3\. Favorite subject besides football? History I guess._

_4\. Favorite sport besides football? There IS no sport besides football. But my mom used to follow baseball, so I did watch the Rangers with her sometimes. And apparently her dad - my Grandpa Maddox - played in the minor league for three years._

_5\. You'd really like to know why I got sent here, wouldn't you? I'll keep you guessing._

_Now some questions for you -_

_1\. Favorite singer?_

_2\. Favorite movie?_

_3\. Where did you move from?_

_4\. What do you look like?_

_Sincerely,_

_Eric Just-an-Initial Taylor_

Tami noticed that Eric didn't answer any of her questions about Mo McArnold. He didn't say a word about his fellow junior and teammate. What did that mean? She hoped he wasn't saying nothing because he had nothing good to say.

Tami rolled off her bed, hurried to her desk, and tore out two sheets of notebook paper.


	12. Chapter 12

Eric popped a slice of avocado in his mouth. There was always avocado on the kitchen counter at siesta, and it wasn't something he'd ever expected to eat by the slice before. He'd never had it any way except in guacamole. But it was becoming a habit of his, to eat it like candy.

Grandpa Maddox was distributing the mail. "And Billy," he said, handing a letter to Eric's roommate.

Billy took the letter and looked at with a crinkled brow. "Ain't no one ever writes me," he said. "What is it? Junk mail?"

"Eric has a pen pal," Grandpa said, "and I think it's been good for him, so I singed you and a couple of the other guys up for one, too. Dante, here's yours."

Dante took the letter and looked it over with curiosity.

Billy snorted. " _Pen pal_? What are we? In third grade?"

"Shut up," Dante muttered. "It's something to do. Just be grateful."

"There were several students at Bowie High who needed someone to write for a school project," Grandpa said. "I told my son-in-law Deacon he could give them some of your names. So now there are four of you will be getting letters. Javier, here's yours. This will be a good way to practice your written English."

The lean, dark skinned boy, who had been born in the U.S. but spent his life in and out of Mexico, grabbed the letter and also the plate of avocados before disappearing toward the living room.

"Pen pal," Billy said again with a snicker, but he tore open his letter awfully fast as he left the kitchen.

Grandpa Maddox handed Eric an envelope. He recognized the script immediately as being Tami's hand. He retreated to his mesquite tree, where he sat down on the cold, hard earth and snapped up his jean jacket. It had actually dropped down to 40 today, and his hands felt a little chilly as he read the letter.

_January 28, 1983_

_Dear Eric,_

_I meant my aunt's beautiful and curvy like Marilyn Monroe and men fall all over themselves around her. Including your dad, by the way. SHE was the one who told him she just wanted to be friends, not him, at least according to her. He wanted to keep dating her._

Eric felt angry at his father for  _wanting_  to date this woman, but then that anger gave way to slight amusement because his father had been shot down. Coach Taylor was a pretty confident man on the football field and in his marriage to Eric's mom. It would have been funny to see him humbled like that. He must have been really embarrassed given that he'd lied to cover it up. Eric's amusement shifted next to sympathy. He wouldn't want to be shot down like that himself. But then he thought about the fact that his father had lied, and his feelings returned to anger again.

Wanting to get off this roller-coaster ride of emotions, he shook the letter and shook his head, as if that could shake off all the feelings. Then he went back to reading:

_Glad to hear you're getting along better with your dad. My aunt said she gave him some advice on how to talk to you on the phone, so I guess it worked?_

Eric didn't know what Tami meant. His father hadn't talked to him in any  _particular_  way. He'd just...well, they'd talked a lot about Eric's mom the last two times he called. His dad shared a lot of funny stories with him, things he'd never known about Mom. And Eric had shared some stories back - things he and his mother had done together when his father was at away games or out of town or otherwise busy. They hadn't argued. They hadn't talked about Eric's past indiscretions or even how or what he was doing on the ranch. They'd just talked about mom.

_She's a pretty good counselor, but_ _I wouldn't want to be a counselor. That just doesn't seem fun, dealing with messed up people and their messed up problems all day long. I think I want to be an actress, but, if I don't make it at that - maybe a school principal. They seem to make good money and get to boss everyone around, and when I'm principal, there will be NO 7-period day. 7_ _th_ _period will be party period for everyone._

_My electives next year? I guess it'll depend where I end up going to school and what they offer. There's a chance I may go_ _back to live with my mom after this semester is over if I've pulled up my grades and got my "head back on right." I'm not sure I even want to move back, except that I miss my little sister Shelley and she really misses me. I won't have to go back to my old school, at least, because my Mom is moving someplace cheaper, some small town called Dillon. I don't want to move to yet another new place, but it's probably better than going back to my old school. I really embarrassed myself there. I don't want to face those people again._

_I guess if you come back to Euless in August and I move back in with my mom in July, we may never meet in person. Maybe that's a good thing, given everything I've been telling you. But you'll meet my aunt. She bought the house here and has a job and likes it and everything, so she's staying. Wherever I end up, I'm trying out for the volleyball team next fall. I used to play in junior high and I was pretty good, but after my dad took off, I just quit. I don't know why. I was pretty depressed I guess. But my aunt is encouraging me to get back into it._

_You know, if you sow your wild oats until you're thirty, all of the good women are going to be taken by the time you decide to get married. You're going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. But I guess if you're in the NFL you can take your pick. Do you really think you have a chance of making it? No offense, but, like 1% of high school players get there, right? Why do you want to be a sportscaster? When your dad was over for dinner yesterday he told my aunt you're not much of a talker. Why not just be a coach like your own dad?_

_You're right. My dad is an asshole. I don't know why I sometimes blame my mom for pushing him away. I mean, why wouldn't she have pushed him away? He's the kind of asshole who doesn't even visit his kids once he's divorced. I bet she put up with more than I realized for longer than I realized just to keep our dad in our lives, on and off._ _Your dad doesn't seem anything like an asshole to me, though. He seems pretty nice. He fixes stuff around our house sometimes. For someone who's only interested in being friends, my aunt sure does check him out a lot when he's doing it._

_~~ January 31, 1983 ~~_

_Oops, I got distracted by a phone call from Mo McArnold and then forgot to finish and send this letter. I'll put it in the mail tomorrow. By the way, I sniffed Mr. McMullen's cup like you said to. Oh my God! Is he just drunk the entire time he's teaching? Is that it? Why doesn't the administration do something about it?_

_Thanks for the heads up on Shane. Kimberly already lost interest in him before I got your letter, though. They actually went out once already. He expected sex on the first date. She said NO to the sex, and he got all whiny, so she said no to ever going out with him again. Bullet dodged. I like Kimmy. She knows who she is and she doesn't need to impress anyone. I wish I was more like that a year ago. If I was, I might not have done some things I wish I hadn't done. I think I'm becoming more like that this year, though._

_So…What about Mo? What do you think of him? He's taking me to the dance this Saturday. I said yes._

_To answer your questions -_

_My favorite movie at the moment is Grease. By the way, I went and looked at your team photo in the trophy case in the main hall and you look nothing like Robert Redford. You look more like John Travolta in Grease._

Eric smiled faintly. That must mean she thought he was pretty good-looking. Unless she didn't like John Travolta in Grease. But if it was her favorite movie, she probably did. Besides, most girls thought he was good-looking, especially when he was playing ball. His mother had always told him never to let that go to his head, that it was no challenge to get a girl - that the real challenge was keeping her. "Your dad's managed to keep me nineteen years," she'd said at the time. "Now that's an accomplishment." But now his dad was moving on, apparently, or at least he wanted to, even though he wasn't getting any traction. He wondered if his dad would start dating someone else now, maybe one of the teachers at the school, maybe one of Eric's teachers for next year. How weird would that be? He tried not to think about that and read on:

_My favorite singer is Tammy Wynette. My mom named me after her but changed the y to an i to be different I guess. She had her first number one hit the year I was born. Do you like country music at all? It sounds like you mostly listen to rock._

_I moved from Houston, but we used to live in Corpus before that. I guess I live in Dillon next, if I don't stay here in Euless. I don't really want to live in a small town where no one cares about anything but football. No offense. I know you're totally into it, and it's okay, but it's not the end all be all._

Eric raised an eyebrow. Football might not be the end-all-be-all, but it was sure a heck of a lot better than "okay."

_I don't know how to describe what I look like, so maybe I'll just send you a photo the next time I write._

_Do you have a hot date planned for Valentine's Day? If this dance thing goes well, I guess I'm going out with Mo for the Hallmark Heart Holiday too._

_Sincerely,_

_Tami_

Eric folded the letter three times and shoved it into the pocket of his jean jacket. He stood because Billy was making his way to the tree. "Siesta's 'bout over, man. Help me repair that fence?"

Eric nodded and followed him across the ranch. Billy ended up doing most of the work, while Eric just held things for the guy and handed them over when asked, or added his muscle to the lifting or propping. Billy was very handy with tools. "You should become a maintenance guy," Eric told him. "Handyman or something."

"Might could," Billy said. "It don't take a high school degree." He slid a post in place. "Hey, yer pen pal send ya a photo?"

"Not yet."

"Mine did. She's ain't much to look at."

"Well, maybe don't mention that in your reply," Eric said. "And you're no Prince Charming either." Billy was a bit gangly and his teeth were somewhat stained, probably from cigarettes or chew. His sandy brown hair was always unkempt, and he was missing part of that one toe.

"Ya think Warren assigned us all ugly girls on purpose?" Billy asked.

"I don't think my pen pal's ugly," Eric replied. "She got asked out by the new quarterback. She's probably decent looking. I mean, Mo's a little goofy and annoying." McArnold was a bit on the thin side for a quarterback, not nearly as well built as most of the players. "He's probably not going to get A-list girls. But he  _is_  a quarterback, so he's at least going to get B-list."

"Oh." Billy grinned. "No wonder you've been writin' her back. B-list don't sound bad."

"That's not why," Eric said. "Not to brag, but I'm pretty sure I can date A-list when I go back to Euless." He helped Billy by holding a post while he nailed it in place. "I just...I don't know. I  _like_  writing her."

"What makes ya think any of 'em girls is even gonna 'member ya when ya get back? Sounds like this Mo McArnold guy might of filled yer shoes already."

"I'll be back on the team. My dad's the coach. McArnold's going back to the bench."

"If'n ya say so." Billy put a nail between his teeth to hold it and gestured for Eric to help pick up another post.

Billy didn't say much else while they finished repairing the fence, and Eric found his mind wandering. What if he did return to school a nobody? It wasn't as if his old friends were checking in on him down on this ranch. It was like he didn't exist for them. Tami was the only person other than his father he was communicating with back home, and he'd never met her, and she might not be there when he moved back.

It occurred to Eric that although he'd hung out and partied with the guys on the team quite a bit, he'd never really made a best friend, or even a close friend. The last time he could remember having a best friend was in 7th grade, but that kid had moved away to California. They'd written for awhile, and then the letters had just tapered off. It wasn't clear who stopped writing first, but they both knew they were never going to see each other again.

He'd never really  _talked_  to the guys on his team about anything other than football. He sure hadn't talked to any of them about his mom dying. He'd probably said more to Billy and Dante about that already, in just his few weeks here, than he'd ever said to the teammates he'd known for two years. He was beginning to find an unexpected acceptance among these strange new friends on the ranch, but he didn't quite know where his place was in that old world he'd left behind. What would he be going back to, exactly?

"Watch yer thumb, brother," Billy said. "Don't want ya losing a toe like me."

Eric shook off the unwelcome thoughts and put his mind into the work.


	13. Chapter 13

"Are you getting the hang of horseback riding?" Coach Taylor asked. He was sitting in the chair at the kitchen desk, intermittently sipping a single bottle of beer as he talked to his son. Maybe he shouldn't have kept beer in the house when Eric began the heavy drinking. He wondered if Eric was craving alcohol, now that he'd gone weeks without it, but he was afraid to ask.

"I suck at it," Eric said. "Billy's a natural. Dante's pretty good. But either the horse stops suddenly on me, or it goes so fast I fall off. I almost broke my arm."

"Well, be careful about that. Maybe you shouldn't be riding. You don't want to mess up your chance at the NFL. And we're going to need you in shape for next season on the Bowie Boars."

"So Mo isn't working out for you?"

"Mo's an adequate player. But he lacks your natural athleticism. He even lacks your discipline."

"Even?" Eric asked, his voice rising. Coach Taylor could tell he'd irritated his son. He felt a mixture of anger and regret to hear that tone in Eric's voice. "Because it's a shock that I have any discipline at all, is that it?"

"No. that's not what I said, Eric. You've been fairly self-disciplined most of your life. But you can agree that last season you may have slacked off a little. The drinking may - "

" - Well I still got you to the playoffs, didn't I? And when you  _benched_  me for Mo, he didn't exactly bring you to State."

"I never said you weren't a good player." Coach Taylor rubbed his eyes. He was getting tired of Eric's prickliness. He was getting tired of feeling like a failure as a father. He was getting tired of not being able to say anything right. He tried to switch course. As pleasantly as he could muster, he said, "Bonnie told me you've been writing Tami long letters. I'm glad you're helping her with her assignment, that you're taking your part in it seriously."

"Because I usually don't take things seriously, right? I'm a total jack-off most of the time."

"Don't speak to me like that. Don't use terms like that. That's not a word you should be saying to your elders." What the hell was happening? They'd had a decent conversation last time they'd spoken on the phone. Deacon had thought he was making progress. Bonnie had told him to talk about Ivy, that Eric needed to know that Deacon missed her too, that they'd mourned separately but not together, and neither of them had mourned in a particularly healthful way. So he had talked about Ivy. Maybe that's what he should do now. "Your mother - "

"- Would have been ashamed of me. I know."

"Jesus Christ, Eric! Do you have to take everything so goddamn personally?"

There was silence on the other end of the line. Eric was probably stunned. Deacon Taylor didn't swear much, at least not around his son. He hadn't sworn much around Ivy, either. In high school, he'd been told by his football coach that a gentleman didn't swear in front of a lady. It wasn't something he'd have guessed from the way his own father had cussed  ** _at_  **his mother, but the admonition from his beloved coach had stuck with him. In front of Eric or Ivy, he might say the occasional hell or damn, but that was the worst of it. Most of his swearing was reserved for other adult males.

Eric's voice was almost a whisper. "Dad?"

"Sorry. I didn't mean to...I just..." Deacon sighed. "I thought we had a good talk last time. And I don't understand what, if anything, I've done to make you so defensive. That's all."

"I guess...I guess I'm just..."

"Just what?" Coach Taylor asked.

"Well, I don't understand why you told me you decided  _not_  to date this Bonnie chick when apparently it was the other way around. And apparently you  _want_  to go out with her."

"What gave you that idea?"

"Tami gave me that idea. That's what her aunt told her."

"Ah."

"Is it true?" Eric asked. "Did you want to keep dating her?"

Coach Taylor considered lying, but he didn't lie. "Yes," he said. "I did."

"Why?"

"Because...she's..." Beautiful. Lively. Intriguing. Most likely very good in bed, if he had to hazard a guess. "...Good company. But we're just going to be friends."

"That's not what you want, though?"

"What I want is not relevant in this scenario," Coach Taylor said. "The woman always leads, Eric. And a gentleman doesn't press."

"So...does that mean you're going to be looking to date someone else?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "Maybe."

"Why?"

"Eric, son...it's been over a year. I miss..." He fell silent. He missed the touch of a woman, the softness and the otherness of the female sex, the affection, the companionship, and yes...most definitely the sex. He didn't say any of that, though. What he said was: "I do miss your mother. I loved her and I was always faithful to her. But she's dead, Eric." He ran to fingers across his eyes to the bridge of his nose when he said that, because there might have been a tear or two there. "She's dead. And you're on that ranch. And in two years you'll be at college. And I'm alone."

"Oh. Well, I've got to go."

"Eric - "

"It's dinner time and then I have to finish this book Grandpa assigned. I really have to go."

Before Coach Taylor could quite say goodbye, his son had hung up.

[*]

Eric turned on the light attached to the post of his bunk bed. Billy was snoring again on the top bunk, like a chain saw. Dante was asleep with his pillow over his head and those soft orange ear plugs they used on the rifle range when Grandpa was teaching them to shoot, which he did on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

Figuring he wasn't going to be able to nod off anytime soon, Eric pulled out a notebook and a blue ballpoint pen.

_February 1, 1983_

_Dear Tami,_

_You said you were glad I'm getting along better with my dad, but I'm not sure I am. We talked today, and we kind of fought. Sometimes I feel like I can't do anything right in his eyes. I know that probably sounds like a totally petty complaint to you, what with the raw deal you got from your dad. But it's just how I feel about it._

_I thought you'd be staying in Euless until you graduated. That sucks, getting jerked around from school to school like that. Three high schools in four years? We've moved for my dad's job a lot, but I haven't had to change schools much. We moved the summer before I started kindergarten, then again in the summer before 3rd grade, then right before middle school, then for high school. But I'd have been starting a new school anyway for all but one of those moves. I guess you would miss your sister and want to get back to her, though. I never had a brother or sister. I kind of wish I had, because I don't have a lot of close friends in Euless, honestly._ _But family's always there, you know?_

He went back and scratched out the last sentence, because he thought of the fact that her father had deserted her. Then he continued:

_If you do end up moving back in with your mom, and she does end up moving to Dillon, don't worry about it. It's not so bad. I actually lived there for three years when I was in middle school. Dillon High has a really great football team. The Panthers have won State twice in my lifetime. But I know you don't care about football. Still, the town might not suck as much as you expect it to. I mean, it's not like Euless is a very exciting place, either, other than being less than an hour from Dallas and Fort Worth. Okay, well, Dillon is kind of in the middle of nowhere. But the high school is pretty big, almost as big as Bowie High. Of course, that's because it's the ONLY high school. Well, there's one in east Dillon, too, but you don't want to live on that side of the tracks. They were shutting that school down when we moved anyway. I think the kids who went there are going to school in the next town over now._

_So...volleyball? Yeah, you should totally try out this summer. Sports are great for taking your mind off of the crap you have to deal with it. Football's always done that for me. Maybe volleyball will make you forget whatever you did to embarrass yourself at your old school. What DID you do? (Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. And remember - we'll probably never even meet each other in person.)_

_No, I don't honestly think I have a chance of making the NFL, but I talk like I do, because my dad seems to think I CAN make it, if I just "straighten myself out" and come back and play well next season. I do think I could get a full college scholarship, but...getting drafted out of college? I don't know. I just don't think that happens to regular guys like me. I used to think I was hot stuff, but I'm starting to think I'm pretty much just a regular guy. I don't think I'm destined to do great things._

_As for why I don't want to coach football? Because that's what my dad does. Probably the same reason I don't listen to country music - because that's what my dad does. The truth is, I don't even really like Van Halen. I just know it annoys my dad. And I don't even know if I really want to be a sportscaster. I just know that sportscasters piss off my dad with all their commentary. This all sounds kind of stupid when I write it down like that._

_So, how was the dance with Mo? Guess you'll have gone already by the time you get this._

_Don't forget to send me a photo of yourself next time._

_Sincerely,_

_Eric_

Eric tucked the notebook under his bed and clicked off the light. Billy had rolled on his left side, which meant he wasn't snoring anymore - for now. He only snored on his back. Eric settled under his blanket, closed his eyes, and willed himself to sleep.

[*]

The horse whinnied and bucked as the trainer grasped its reins, spoke to it, and soothed it. Eric leaned against the fence surrounding the ring and watched the trainer at work. As soon as this session was done, Eric was suppose to rub down the horse. The task intimidated him a little. You never new if the horse was going to cooperate with the grooming.

Grandpa Maddox bought unruly horses for cheap from other ranchers. Sometimes, a horse could not be broken, and Grandpa had to take the lossbut when one  _could_  be trained, he sold it again and got a huge return on his investment.

A lightly tanned, wrinkled hand came down on the rail beside Eric. He turned and tipped his cowboy hat to his grandfather and then returned his attention to the ring. They watched in silence for awhile, until Grandpa said, "Your mother tamed your father something like that. Broke him in real good. He was a bit wild in his youth. A good ranch hand, but he came with a reputation."

"Wild how?" Eric asked.

"You don't need to know the details, grandson. But he had his troubles, just like you did back in Euless. So when he ran off with my daughter - your mother - well, I was none too happy. I felt betrayed."

"Betrayed?"

"You father was desperate for work, and I gave him a chance even though he didn't have a lot of ranch skills. And that's how he repaid me - by eloping with her."

"They eloped?" Eric hadn't known that. He knew they'd married when his mother was very young, just eighteen, and he hadn't seen any wedding photos, now that he thought about it, but being a boy, it wasn't something he'd thought to look for or ask about before.

"I was angry when he took off with her," grandpa continued. "I was worried, too. I didn't expect it to last. I kept waiting for her to come home with her heart shattered, but, you know, she never did. To be honest, I assumed he'd knocked her up."

"Dad?" Eric had always figured his parents were virgins when they got married. His mother was always telling him to respect girls, and his father never talked about sex at all.

"But then you didn't come along until five years later," grandpa said. "And then your father worked very hard and worked his way all the way up to a head coaching position. Athletic Director, even. And he's been a steady husband and a good provider." He sighed. "I probably should have given your father a second chance sooner. But I didn't, and every time over the past several years, whenever I've thought about reaching out to him, it just seemed impossible. As if thing were permanently awkward between us. We've never been able to quite sort it out." He nodded to Billy, who was assisting the horse trainer in the ring. "Maybe that's why, for the last ten years, I've been running this camp. Trying to give all these boys the benefit of the doubt I failed to give your father."

Eric looked away from the ornery horse that was being trained to his grandfather. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because I don't want you to make the same mistake I did. I want you to give your father the benefit of the doubt. He loves you, Eric. That's why he sent you here. Stop acting like you don't know that. And stop acting like you don't need his love."

Eric turned away and refocused his attention on the horse. Grandpa put a hand on Eric's shoulder. He squeezed gently before walking away.


	14. Chapter 14

Tami turned around so her aunt could zip up her dress.

"You look really nice, Tam. See, I told you this was prettier than that immodest one."

Tami rolled her eyes as she turned to face her aunt. "It's not like you don't wear blouses that emphasize your assets, auntie."

"But they aren't _that_  low cut. Subtlety, Tami. You have to leave something to the imagination. Boys have fantastic imaginations."

Tami chuckled. This was nothing like preparing for a date would have been with her mother. Of course, Tami wouldn't know, becuase her mother had forbidden her to date. The consequence of that was that she had ended up sneaking out of the house and going to parties where there were a lot of older boys, and losing her virginity, and getting called easy in school (while the boy got called a stud), and wishing she could turn back the clock and undo it all.

There was a knock on the door. "Already?" Tami asked. Mo wasn't supposed to pick her up for the dance for another thirty minutes. Aunt Bonnie had conceded that it was okay to let him drive, even though this was a first date, because Tami could always use the school phone to call Bonnie to pick her up if things proved disastrous.

Aunt Bonnie turned her eyes to the front door and peered through the verticle window in the wall next to it. "Oh, it's just Deacon." She let him in. He nodded to them both and extended Aunt Bonnie a record.

He sure did lend her a lot of records, Tami thought - clearly an excuse to come over and see her more often.

"This is the one I was talking about," he told her.

"Well you look very handsome," Aunt Bonnie told him. Coach Taylor was in a black suit and with a solid red tie. "Are you chaperoning at the dance?"

Coach Taylor let out a sharp laugh. "Certainly not. I don't get paid enough for that." He looked over her shoulder at Tami. "You're going to attend, I gather?"

"Yes, sir. With Mo McArnold."

"So why are you so dressed up then?" Aunt Bonnie asked him.

"I have a date. We're going to the symphony in Dallas."

"A date?" Aunt Bonnie asked with shock in her voice. "To the  _symphony_?"

"Yes."

"You don't strike me as a symphony sort of guy."

"Well, she's a symphony sort of girl."

Aunt Bonnie blinked. She gripped the record he had handed her a little tighter. "Who is this woman?"

Tami detected a note of jealousy in her tone. She excused herself to finish getting ready for the dance, but when she rounded the corner to the hallway, she couldn't resist the temptation to eavesdrop...just a little.

"Not someone from school, I hope," her aunt was saying. "You know, you really shouldn't dip your pen in the company ink."

"It's the first date. I don't think I'll be dipping my pen in anything."

Tami covered her mouth to stifle a gasping laugh. She couldn't believe Coach Taylor had said something like that, let alone to a woman. But, to be fair, her aunt  _had_  been the one to choose the phrase. She thought maybe Coach Taylor was still a little bitter about her aunt's rejection.

Tami listened for her aunt's response. There was a long silence and then, "Who  _is_  she?"

"The sister of one of my assistant coaches. She lives in Irving."

"How long have you known each other?" Aunt Bonnie asked.

"I've met her a few times, at dinners and cocktail parties and such that Coach Gomez has invited me to over the past three years. Why do you ask?"

"Just...it seems kind of sudden, don't you think? I mean, one day you're saying you want to date me, and practically the next day you're - "

" - You said you only wanted to be friends."

"Yeah, I did, but..." Tami's aunt trailed off.

"May I tell you something, Bonnie. Candidly?"

"You can always be candid with me, Deacon."

"You snooze, you lose. Enjoy the record." The front door opened and closed.

Tami scurried down the hall to the bathroom and pretended to be fixing her hair.

[*]

_February 5, 1983_

_Dear Eric,_

_Did your dad tell you he went to the symphony with Coach Gomez's sister yesterday? I have no idea who that is, but he was dressed very sharply. I think my aunt was a little jealous. I don't get why she said she didn't want to date him if she's just going to get bent out of shape when he dates someone else._

_I had a good time at the winter dance with Mo. He's so goofy and high energy but it was so much fun dancing with him. Why do you never say anything about him? Don't you have an opinion on him? Or is this some kind of silence of the football brotherhood thing? He was very sweet to me. He brought me a single red rose. Totally classy. We're going out to Chili's on Valentine's Day. He wanted to take me to a movie after, but my aunt said no, because it's a school night. How about you? Any hot dates for Heart-Day?_

_What do you mean you don't have close friends in Euless? Not even on the team? Mo mentioned you a couple of times - just football related stuff from last season. I told him you were writing me pen pal letters and he laughed. I guess the idea of you writing letters is funny? You're not a letter writing sort of guy, usually? I asked if y'all were friends and he said you mostly hung out with the troublemakers on the team and he likes to stay out of trouble so he doesn't risk getting kicked off the team like you did. I guess that's why you're on the ranch. Because you got into trouble. Come on! When are you going to tell me what you did? Inquiring minds want to know. (So, those guys you used to hang out with, you don't consider them close friends?)_

Tami thought of writing, "If you tell me what you did to get sent to the ranch, I'll tell you what I did to embarrass myself at my old school," but she decided against it. She didn't want to share something  _that_  personal with him. Nobody knew about it except the boy, her aunt Bonnie, and, apparently, half of her old high school...

_Maybe you're not "destined to great things" as you say. But maybe you're destined to be a great man in small things. My aunt always tells me that the things we do have ripple effects that can go on and on...so don't be bummed if you don't make it to the NFL. Figure out what you can do to make a ripple effect. God. I sound like a stupid inspirational poster, don't I? But whatever you do, don't NOT do something you WANT to do just because your dad does it. You're right - that IS totally stupid._

_Okay, some questions so you'll have something to write back -_

_1\. Favorite football team OTHER than the Dallas Cowboys?_

_2\. Favorite candy bar._

_Oh, heck, let's make this more interesting. You and I are probably never going to see each other, right? We might as well make it like truth or dare -_

_3\. When did you lose your virginity?_

_4\. What girl do you most like at Bowie High as of right now?_

_5\. Have you ever been in a fist fight?_

_Sincerely,_

_Tami_


	15. Chapter 15

Tami didn't have a lot of experience dating. She'd gone to her first school dance in 9th grade, with a group of friends, and danced with the same boy twice. After that, she'd decided he was her boyfriend, but he'd been shy and they'd never done anything but hold hands. Eventually, the romance, such as it was, had fizzled out. In 10th grade, she'd shared her first real kiss with a boy. They'd never gone any farther than a little making out. But then the first half of her junior year, she'd gone straight from dipping her toe in the shallow end to jumping off the high dive.

Feeling confined by her mother's strict rules and curfew, Tami had begun sneaking out of the house, partying, and neglecting her grades. She'd casually lost her virginity and regretted it, but now...now...she thought maybe she was about to have her first  _real_  boyfriend.

Mo was so cute, and funny, and energetic. And he  _really_  seemed to like her. He was carrying her books in the hallway now, and giving her rides home from school in his blue 1979 Mustang with the black racing stripe, and laughing with her at rehearsal, and for Valentine's Day, he'd taken her out to a  _sit-down_  dinner at Bennigan's. They'd made out in his car for half an hour before he took her home, but he hadn't tried to touch her below the waist.

She'd been so busy with Mo, that she hadn't noticed Eric's delay in writing her back. But when his letter arrived the day after Valentine's, she found herself strangely excited to see his familiar scrawl on the envelope. She snatched up the letter and headed toward her room, leaving her aunt staring out the kitchen window at Coach Taylor working on his pick-up truck in his driveway. It was sixty degrees, a warm February evening, and the man had on nothing but blue jeans and a tight white t-shirt, which was stained with black grease or oil. For some reason, this seemed to appeal immensely to Tami's aunt.

Tami shook her head and retreated.

[*]

_February 11, 1983_

_Dear Tami,_

_No, my dad didn't tell me he was dating Coach Gomez's sister. He doesn't tell me anything. I had to call and ask him about it and he fessed up. I guess that's just what he's going to be doing now. Dating. I don't know why it ticks me off so much. It's not like he's cheating on my mom. It's been awhile. I just hope I never have to deal with a stepmother. I just think that would be weird. If I do, pretty sure it's not going to be Coach Gomez's sister. He's gone out with her twice now, but he said she's not the sharpest tool in the shed. She keeps using big words that don't mean what she thinks they mean and he has to try not to laugh. I think he wants to stop seeing her but he's afraid of pissing off his assistant coach so they have a date for Valentine's, which I guess will be over when you get this letter. You probably know more about that than I do. You seem to have the scoop on my dad's life before me._

_No, I didn't go out for Valentine's. I don't get to date here at the ranch. The only time I see girls at all is when we go to the movies on Friday night and the indoor pool on Saturday. That's the only time we leave the ranch. They flirt with us, but that's it, although my roommate Dante got one girl's number. Not that it matters. He can't take her out. Rules. We're supposed to be "working on ourselves" and not worrying about girls. For Valentine's Day, my grandpa made us visit a nursing home and give cards and sweets to the old ladies. We each had to pick one to read to and talk with, too. So my hot date was eighty-nine. Mrs. O'Henry had some really interesting stories about World War I though. She was an Army nurse in France. Pretty cool lady, actually, but she kept calling me Eugene._

_I thought I was going to hate visiting the nursing home, but it's kind of cool getting the perspective of old people. I never had grandparents, really. My dad's mom died when he was ten, and his dad was an alcoholic basket case who kicked my dad out of the house when he was sixteen, so if he's even alive, my dad doesn't talk to him. He ended up living with his coach until he graduated from high school. My mom's mom died when my mom was fourteen, and so all I have is Grandpa Maddox, but I never really saw him often or spent much time with him before now. It's been pretty good getting to know him. He's lived some life. And he's strict, but he's...I don't know. I respect him, I guess. Do you have any living grandparents?_

_What do you mean, "maybe I'm destined to be a great man in small things?" Talk about inspirational poster b.s. Though, I don't know. My grandpa does small things on the ranch, but he's really making a difference I think. A lot of these guys, they were a mess before they came here, and most of them will go home not a mess. I might go home not a mess._

_Your questions:_

_(1) I don't have a second favorite NFL team after the Cowboys. My favorite college team is the Aggies, though. And I rooted for the Dolphins in the last Superbowl, of course, because they were playing the Redskins. Did you watch it? Grandpa has no T.V. reception so we watched it down at some bar and drank Cokes all night. We had to leave before it was quite over though because some drunk guy started really ranting and Gramps didn't want us around for that._

_(2) Baby Ruth. What's yours?_

_(3) None of your damn business. Why, when did you?_

_(4) I dated a few girls last semester, but I wasn't really that into any of them. So what girl do I like most at Bowie High? Well, since you're pretty much the only girl from Bowie High who's even talking to me right now, I guess you._

_(5) Only once. Middle school. 6th grade. This 8th graders were picking on this semi-retarded kid so I just popped him one. He fought back and gave me a nice black eye. He was bigger. We both got in trouble for fighting from the school, but my dad wasn't mad at me._

_So...you forgot to enclose your photo. You gonna send that this time?_

_Sincerely,_

_Eric_

Tami didn't write back immediately. She went to the kitchen to get a Coke. Her aunt was still looking out the window, even though all the dishes in the sink were clean and put away in the drying rack now. "Good Lord, Auntie. Why don't you just walk over there and tell him you made a mistake and you actually  _do_  want to date him?"

Aunt Bonnie wiped her hands dry on the towel. "I was just day dreaming," she insisted.

"What are you so afraid of? He seems like a nice enough man. Even though he got kicked out of his house when he was sixteen."

Aunt Bonnie whirled around. "What?"

Tami laughed. "I don't know. That's just what Eric told me. I think that was his father's fault, though, not anything really bad he'd done."

"He never mentioned that to me."

"Well, maybe on your next date he'll talk to you about it."

Aunt Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Cut it out, little Miss Matchmaker."

Tami leaned back against the refrigerator. "Seriously. Why don't you just admit you like him? What's the worse that happens?"

"I get my heart broken."

"You told me heartbreaks heal, remember? You told me that I have my whole life ahead of me."

"I'm not sixteen."

Tami turned, open the fridge, and grabbed a Coke. "Go ask him out," she said, and then she disappeared back into the bedroom to write her letter to Eric.


	16. Chapter 16

Eric flipped through the pages of Tami's letter. He peered into the envelope and dug his fingers around the inside.

"What ya lookin' for?" Billy asked. The weather had turned cold, so Eric was taking siesta inside by the fireplace today, along with some of the other boys. When he was working outside, he usually ended up shedding his coat, but when he was just resting, the chill crept in.

Billy was paying chess with Dante on the living room table, his back to the fire. The first time Eric had seen Billy playing, he'd laughed and asked, " _You_  play chess?" Billy had given him such a hard look, that Eric's laughter had faded quickly. Apparently, Grandpa Maddox had taught Billy to play, and he'd taken to the game like a fish to water.

"My pen pal keeps saying she'll send a photo," Eric answered, "but she never does."

"Must be C list then, man," Billy replied.

"Nah, told you, she's dating the quarterback. Maybe not A list, but she can't be C list."

"Maybe she's C list but she has  _other_  skills," Billy said with a wiggle of his eyebrow. "Check."

"Damn it," Dante muttered. He studied the board.

"Or maybe this quarterback's just a loser," Billy continued. "Has he ever dated hot girls before?"

"I don't know what his other girlfriend looks like," Eric said. "She lives in Grapevine." He refolded Tami's letter and set it on the end table.

Dante peered over the chess board to where Eric sat in the rocking chair. "He has  _another_  girlfriend?"

"Unless he broke it off with her, but he was still talking about her when I got sent here. His parents are divorced. He lives in Euless most of the time with his mom, but he sees his Dad in Grapevine part of the summer and one weekend a month. So he sees his girl when he's there."

Billy grinned like this was the best entertainment he'd experienced in weeks. "Ya gonna tell yer pen pal that?"

"Not my business," Eric said. "I assume he told her."

"Did she  _say_  he told her?" Billy asked. "In one of her letters?"

"No."

"I doubt he told her," Dante said. "Girls don't generally like to date guys who are _already_  dating other girls."

"Some of them do," Eric said.

Billy leaned back on his hands, which he stretched out behind himself on the carpet. "How many chicks you date at once?"

"I'm not dating anyone at the moment."

Billy cocked his head to the side. "A'ight, but what's the maximum ya ever dated at one time?"

"Three."

"They all know you was seein' the other ones?"

"Sure," Eric said. "I think at least one of them only wanted me because the other two did."

Billy chuckled, sat up straighter, and made a move on the chess board. "Must be nice to be you."

"A guy's got to play the field a little," Eric reasoned. "It's not like I ever lied to any of them or cheated on anyone." Eric said it casually, as if he'd never wanted anything more than meaningless flings. But the truth was, as much as he physically enjoyed fooling around with pretty girls, he'd felt a little empty the whole time he was going it. He  _wanted_  a real girlfriend, but he hadn't liked or respected any of those girls enough to want to go steady. It wasn't easy for him to connect with other people beyond a surface level. He'd only had one steady girlfriend in his life, and she'd broken his heart a little bit. She'd said he was  _boring_  when she ended it. Well, he sure as hell hadn't been boring this past year, but he hadn't been himself either.

"What if yer pen pal  _don't_  know he's got another girl?" Billy asked.

"Then it's not my place to tell her. I'd get skewered on the team if I ever did something like that."

"Yeah," Billy said with a smirk, "but you might have a B-list girl - or a C-list girl with  _special skills_  - waitin' for ya when ya get back home."

"She might be moving. And even if she's not, I'm not writing her to get her in pants. I'm doing it because it's her school project and my dad's making me." That and, well...Eric enjoyed writing to Tami. He was starting to really look forward to her letters. In fact, he wanted to read this one right now - in  _private -_ so he left the living room.

As he retreated down the hall, he heard Billy say, "Check-frickin'-mate, Dante boy!"

Eric settled on his bunk in the bedroom before unfolding the letter again.

_February 15, 1983_

_Dear Eric,_

_I told my aunt to tell your dad that she likes him. I hope that doesn't piss you off. You seem kind of ticked off about the idea of your dad dating again, although, I've got to say, he's like the most eligible bachelor in the entire eastern half of Euless, so you're probably going to have to come to grips with it. I get it, though. I'd probably freak if my mom started dating again, and I didn't even have a good relationship with my dad._

_But my aunt keeps watching your dad out the window, and I'm just getting annoyed by all the mooning. So I gave her a kick in the butt._ _I don't understand her sometimes, honestly. She told him she didn't want to date him, when it's totally clear to me that she DOES. Maybe it's some kind of mind game. Don't guys hate it when girls do that, though? Or does it actually WORK? Me, I can't do that kind of stuff. If I like someone, I'm just going to say it. And if I don't, well, I'm going to say that too. Anything else seems like a waste of time. Of course, sometimes I'm not always sure. But I'm SURE I like Mo now. He's really sweet. So goofy in a cute way and lots of fun. And he's a pretty awesome kisser. We made out for a really long time after our Valentine's date. It was great._

Now why, Eric wondered, did girls get to say things like that and not be considered dogs? His father would rip him a new one for "kissing and telling." Rather than boast, he'd let the guys in the locker room assume a few things just by smiling and shrugging at their crude suggestions. Sometimes they assumed more than he'd actually done.

_What do you think of Mo? I think I've only asked you that like a dozen times now._

_I think it's sweet that you wooed an old lady for Valentine's Day. Your grandpa sounds pretty awesome. My dad's parents died before I was born. My mom and aunt don't talk to their dad because he was abusive. My aunt keeps reminding me I should cut my mom some slack because she had a hard life, but, you know so did my aunt, and she's not a constant thorn in my side. Of course, Aunt Bonnie never had a husband who left her alone with two girls, so there is that. My mom's never really had a decent man in her life, except my uncle, but we don't get to see him much. My nana is still alive, but my mom's not real close to her because she's still kind of pissed off at how her mom just ignored the abuse. Nana lives with my uncle in Oklahoma and we visit twice a year and that's about it. She's sort of senile and she thinks I'm my mom sometimes._

_When I said a "great man in small things," I was thinking of how people can make a real impact on someone's life, even if they aren't famous. What you described your grandpa doing - that's a good example. If you became a coach, you could really change people's lives, you know? More than you could in the NFL, probably. I had a volleyball coach in 8th grade that really helped me thorough a hard time. Maybe if she hadn't moved, she'd have helped me through my dad taking off and I wouldn't have been stupid about guys my sophomore year and then nearly flunked out last semester._

_My favorite candy bar? Well, not a bar, really, but Reese's peanut butter cups._

_Why do you ASSUME I even lost my virginity?_

"What the hell?" Eric thought. SHE had assumed HE had. She'd asked the question to start with. But maybe he'd accidentally put his foot in his mouth with that one. After all, most of the girls he knew were still virgins, including some of the ones he'd dated last year. They'd wanted to fool around with him but not go all the way. Given how often guys claimed to get laid in the locker room, he'd been a little surprised to learn that.

Eric returned his attention to the letter:

_Glad to know I've made a good impression with my letters. Thought you would just think I was some crazy chick._

Here she drew a face with its eyes rolled and its tongue stuck out.

_But if I'M the girl you like best at Bowie High, that's kind of sad, since we've never even met. That doesn't say a lot for the other girls at Bowie High, does it? Or have you just not gotten to know the cool ones yet for some reason? I don't think the really cool ones hang out with the football team. No offense. I just think a lot of them are busy doing other stuff. Did you mostly date cheerleaders and drill team girls?_

_Sorry I keep forgetting the photo. I had to find one first of all. I didn't exactly pack all my photo albums when I moved in with my aunt. So I had to take one she had of me out of a magnet frame on her fridge. The one I enclosed is of me at homecoming at my old school at the start of this school year, so it's a few months old._

Eric peered into the envelop again, just in case, but there was still no picture.

_So, a few more questions:_

_(1) Favorite board game? Mine's the Mad Magazine game because you get to do silly stuff._

_(2) Do you go to church? I had to go TWICE on Sundays and on Wednesday night back home, but my aunt doesn't go except on Christmas and Easter, as far as I can tell. We're Baptist. What are you?_

_(3) If you could be any animal, what would it be?_

She crossed that out and wrote "never mind, stupid question" underneath. Eric smiled.

_(3) What do you miss most about your mom?_

_Sincerely,_

_Tami_

Eric swallowed. That last question hit him hard. It wasn't just because he missed his mother that it affected him - it was the fact that Tami noticed, cared, and had  _asked_  him about it. None of his so-called friends on the team, and none of the girls he'd dated, had ever asked him a question like that.

He blinked his eyes rapidly, folded up the letter, and shoved it under his bed in the shoe box where he kept all the others.


	17. Chapter 17

Deacon Taylor ran a fingertip along the open top of his beer bottle as he spoke on the phone with his son. He was ready for football season to start again, but even spring training was still over a month away. He wasn't busy enough. "I think you should come home for Easter," he said. "I could drive down that Thursday after work, pick you up. It's April 3 this year."

"A'ight," Eric said. He sounded uncertain about the prospect for some reason.

"Don't want see your old man?"

"Didn't say that. It's just…we were planning a big spring football game that Saturday in the ranch tournaments. But I can reschedule it. I'm in charge of the schedule. I organize the whole thing."

"Ranch tournaments?"

"Yeah, I'm kind of running a ranch league down here," Eric told him. "We don't just play each other now. We play some of the ranch hands on two of the neighboring farms."

"You planned it all out?" Coach Taylor smiled. "Are you coaching your team, too?"

Eric sounded a little proud. "Yeah, yeah I am."

"Not as easy as it looks, huh?"

"No," he admitted. "It's not."

"You're playing adults, too?" Deacon asked.

"Some. They aren't really any bigger than us."

"Just don't get injured," Deacon warned him. "You don't want to throw away your chance at the NFL."

Eric was quiet. Finally he said, "What makes you think I can make it all the way to the NFL?"

"Because I've been coaching high school boys for almost twenty years, Eric. If I say you can make it, it's not because I'm dreaming of pie in the sky. You  _can_. Put in the effort when you get back on the team. Keep your grades up. Get a scholarship to A &M or some place with a decent team…get noticed...it's a real possibility for you." Eric sighed. Deacon didn't understand why he wasn't more excited about the prospect. "You ought to take this as a compliment."

"It's a lot of pressure."

"Life is a lot of pressure," Deacon said. "You should – "

"- Still dating Coach Gomez's sister?"

"Uh…" Coach Taylor was thrown by the change in topic, but even more by the question. "No. We parted amicably after our last date."

"So are you going to ask that neighbor out again? Bonnie?"

"Bonnie told me she doesn't want to date me."

"Sometimes no means ask again later."

Deacon pushed his beer bottle aside on the kitchen desk. "Oh, you're an expert on this?"

"Well, I think I have more recent experience than you do."

Deacon chuckled. "I reckon so."

"That and...I just got a letter from Tami. She said she thinks her aunt likes you."

"So…you wouldn't mind if I  _did_  date her?"

"It's none of my business."

"Yes, Eric, it  _is_  your business. Because you're my son, and anyone I end up dating might…be around."

"You mean I might have a stepmother one day?"

"I'm not looking to get married again," Deacon told him. "But I'm not ruling out the possibility it might happen one day either. I just mean, you know, she'll be around."

"So…" Eric sounded confused. "Are you asking for my permission to date?"

Deacon laughed. "No, son, I'm not asking for  _your_  permission for anything. Ever. But I  _am_  asking how it would make you feel."

Eric sighed. "Fine. Makes me feel like you're forgetting Mom."

"I will never forget your mother. She was the greatest love of my life. She was the mother of my only child. There's no way I can  _forget_  her."

"A'ight, well, you asked how it made me feel, and that's how it makes me feel. But I get it. I do. You've got to move on eventually. So move on. Just don't knock some woman up."

Deacon blinked. "Excuse me?"

"It's what you always tell me, right?"

Deacon sipped slowly from his beer. "I think I've always put it more elegantly than that."

"Well I ain't elegant."

Deacon smiled. "You should work on that." It felt good, this conversation with his son. It felt genuine. It felt like they might actually be moving forward. "So do you want to come home for Easter?"

"You're going to call me out of exile, huh? Seems a fitting time. Around Passover and all."

"Maybe you should also stay for spring training the next week, so we can start getting you ready for next season. Then you can head back to the ranch, finish out your program there, come back in August for summer training." Eric didn't jump at the chance as readily as Deacon expected. Eric had been so pissed off when Deacon had taken him off the team, that he thought Eric would be thrilled he was allowing him to dip his toe back in. "Eric?" he asked.

"Who's going to be first string next season?"

"You, of course. Mo's a decent player, but he can't hold a candle to you. And he's not as coachable as you are."

"You think I'm coachable? I thought you thought I was a lost cause."

"I never thought that, Eric." He took another swig of his beer and swallowed it down, hard. "I thought  _I_  was."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought I wasn't capable of being the father you needed."

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line.

"Eric?"

"So…uh…March 31? You'll pick me up for Easter and then spring training?"

"Yeah, son. Yeah. I'll be there."

[*]

Tami opened her locker to find a single red rose. She picked it up, sniffed, and smiled. When the locker clicked shut, Mo grabbed her from behind. She squealed and turned. She bopped him on the nose with the rose and then kissed him. "Thank you."

He grinned. "What makes you think it was me?"

She rolled her eyes. "Give me a ride home from rehearsal this afternoon?"

"I don't know. You going to give me something in return?"

"No promises."

She did give him something in return, though - kisses that steamed up the windows of his Mustang where it was parked in the far corner of the school parking lot. But when he slid a hand under her sweatshirt and squeezed her breast, she slid it back out. "I need to be getting home. I'm cooking tonight."

Mo sighed. He turned in his seat and started the car. He dropped her off alongside the curb by her house. Tami stopped to check the mail. She paged through the envelopes twice before she realized she was instinctively looking for a letter from Eric. It was much too early. He would have probably just received hers yesterday. Feeling slightly disappointed that she didn't have anything interesting to read, she headed inside.

[*]

Eric was writing Tami in his spiral notebook when Billy rolled out of his top bunk, his bare feet landing with a quiet thud on the ground. Eric hastily closed the spiral notebook.

"What ya hidin'?" Billy asked, scratching his bare stomach just above the boxers he'd slept in. "You writin' porn?"

"No. Just writing back to Tami." He'd taken a day to think about what he should say. It seemed like their letters were getting more personal.

"Ah." Billy opened the top dresser drawer and pulled out a pack of gum. He chewed all the time, to make up for the fact that he wasn't allowed to chew tobacco here. He popped a piece in his mouth. "You  _like_  that girl."

"What? I don't even know her really."

Dante sat up on his bottom bunk bed and rubbed his eyes. "I hope for your sake she doesn't turn out to be C-list, because you're already half gone."

"I don't know what you're talking about. We're just pen pals. I told you. She's dating my teammate."

Dante and Billy glanced at each other and laughed.

Eric asked his grandfather for a stamp after breakfast. Grandpa Maddox gave him an entire sheet. "Seems like you're going to be writing this girl a lot." Eric ducked his head and took the stamps. He took the solitary, six acre walk to the mailbox and got back in time for his morning chores.

That night, after dinner, there was cake because Tiny was leaving them. He'd finished out his judge-ordered program, which meant he was free, and his mother had gotten cleaned up, which meant he got to go back home instead of to foster care. "This is going to mess up the teams," Eric said. "Tiny's our best defensive player."

"Well, you'll have to shuffle players around," Grandpa said. "That's what coaches do, right? Solve problems in a pinch?"

Being in charge of a football team was a lot harder than Eric had guessed. No wonder his father seemed so intense a lot of the time. Eric's mother had kept him relaxed and mild, but he'd been wound tight this past year. It seemed like he was easing back into his old self lately, though. Maybe Eric was too, except he didn't think so. He thought maybe he was becoming his  _new_  self. More grounded, more mature, less in need of the approval of others, and yet more uncertain than ever about what he wanted out of life.

[*]

Tami's back pressed against the dark green cinderblock wall beneath the stairwell. She'd run into Mo during second period, when both were on a bathroom break. His tongue tangled with hers now. He'd slipped his hands under her fuzzy white sweater, but she hadn't stopped him this time, because they were just on her back. But then she felt her bra unclasp and her breast spill free. Before he could move his hands around to the front to fondle her, she pulled away. "Mo!" she scolded. "Wer're in school!"

"No one's here," he insisted. "Everyone's in class."

She pulled the bra back down over her breasts, reached behind herself and fastened it again.

"C'mon," he pleaded. "Just let me play for a little bit. Please?"

"No!" Tami picked up her backpack and, annoyed, headed back to class.

There was no rehearsal today, but Mo found her by her locker at the final bell. "I'm sorry," he said, leaning his shoulder again the locker. "I really thought you wanted me to."

She wondered why he would think that. She'd taken his hand out from under her shirt in the car the day before yesterday.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "Let me make it up to you. Let's go to the movies Saturday. Your pick. Anything you want. Hell, I'll even watch a romantic comedy." He grinned. He had the cutest smile.

"Okay," she agreed, finding a smile tugging at her lips. "We'll see  _Lovesick_."

"Want a ride home?"

"Not today. I really need the exercise. And I always walk with Kim on days we don't have rehearsal."

On the way home, she told Kim about Mo's recent moves, and her own push back. "Don't hold it against him," Kim told her. "All guys are like that. You have to play defense. It's just the way it is. As long as he keeps coming back for more when you say no...he really likes you." She pointed a finger at Tami. "But don't give in just to keep him."

"I won't. Hey, do you ever hear about Eric Taylor?"

Kim was new to the school, too, so she wouldn't have known him personally. "Just that he's Coach Taylor's son and he got arrested for DUI a couple times or something, so Coach Taylor sent him to some home for troubled teens on the Mexican border."

"Really?" Tami asked. "DUI? He does't seem like the drunk type. He seems pretty nice, actually."

"You know him?"

"We've been writing each other, for that pen pal project for English."

"Oh, I'm so glad Mrs. Harrison didn't assign us that."

The subject changed, but Tami kept marveling at the idea of Eric being  _arrested_. His father seemed so nice.  _He_  seemed so nice. But she knew something had to have landed him on that ranch. She wondered if he'd turned to alcohol to self-medicate after his mom died. She couldn't blame him if he had. No wonder he was embarrassed to say why he was at the ranch.

When she got home, she eagerly checked the mail, but Eric's reply letter had not yet arrived, of course. It was still too early.

At dinner that night, her aunt asked her, "Shouldn't you have gotten your quarter report card by now?"

"Oh, yeah," Tami said. "It came out a week ago."

"Well don't you need me to sign yours?"

"No, you only have to sign them if any grade is lower than a B."

Aunt Bonnie grinned. "So you got all As and Bs?"

"I got all As," Tami said. If she did't sound particularly proud, it was because it was nothing new to her. She'd gotten All As her freshman year, and all Bs her sophomore year. It wasn't until the start of her junior year that her grades really hit the toilet, which was partly why she was here.

"Well that's great, girl! Keep this up, and you could get into a really good college, you know!"

"I can't afford a really good college."

"Sure you can," Bonnie said. "You can get partial scholarships at least, I'm sure, and whatever else you need, well, I've got college funds for both you and Shelley."

"What? Wait. You do?"

She nodded and reached for her sweet tea. "I thought your mom would have told you?"

Tami shook her head. "How do you have money for two college funds? Counselors don't make that much, do they?"

"I made a bunch of money writing novels under a pen name when I was younger."

Tami's mouth fell open. She pushed her plate aside. "What's your pen name?"

"You don't need to know that."

Tami leaned forward with glee. "Why? Did you write  _erotica_  or something?"

"No, but they were really vapid romance novels. A bit trashy. Not erotica, but not anything I'm really proud of either. They sold well enough - mid-list stuff, and I banked the money. But I'm trying to be a professional counselor now, so I don't talk about them. I wrote five."

"Five!"

"Don't tell anyone. No one knows but your mother, and she just judges me for it. She's happy she doesn't have to help you with college, but she still judges me for it. But the money is there. You could go to an ivy league if you wanted."

Tami laughed. "I'm not getting into an ivy league. I almost dropped out last semester my grades were so bad."

"Yeah, but they were good before that, and you have straight As now. Take the advanced classes next year. With the extra weight from those, straight As - you could finish your senior year with a 3.4."

"3.4 is not an ivy league GPA."

"Knock your SAT's out of the park and - "

"- Auntie. You're being ridiculous. I might get into UT-Dallas if I'm lucky. Or UNT."

"At least UT-Austin, Tami. Don't set your sights so low. You know, Deacon is encouraging his son to make it all the way to the NFL. There's nothing wrong with having big dreams or people who believe in you."

"Unless those people have totally unrealistic expectations," Tami said. "Then it's kind of a lot of pressure."

"Sorry," Aunt Bonnie apologized. "I didn't mean to make you feel pressured. I just want you to know I really believe you can do it."

After dinner, Tami went to her bedroom and pulled open the filing cabinet drawer in her desk. Tami took out the manila folder where she stored all of her cards and letters from her mom, Shelley, and Eric. She set aside Shelley's latest missive and found herself re-reading all of Eric's old letters.


	18. Chapter 18

The next day, Tami made out with Mo for a few minutes when he dropped her off after rehearsal. He didn't try to put his hand up her shirt again, and when she said she had to go, he said, "Saturday night? Right?"

She nodded and let herself out of his car. The mail hadn't come yet. She went inside and did her homework. When her aunt got home from work and began cooking, Tami set the table. Just two plates. She liked living with her aunt, but she found herself strangely missing Shelley's dinner time chatter. She'd see her sister over Easter weekend, at least. Aunt Bonnie was driving her to Houston on Good Friday, and they'd be reutrning to Euless together on Easter Monday.

"I'm going to run check the mail," Tami said. She thought it should be here by now.

Her aunt, who was filling a pot with water to boil the pasta, looked out the kitchen window. "No!" she insisted. "I will!" She put the pot on the stove, turned it on, and disappeared quickly out the kitchen door.

Curious at her aunt's eagerness to do the menial chore of fetching mail, Tami glanced out the window. Coach Taylor was at his mailbox at the curb, which was just a few feet from theirs. He saw Tami's aunt coming his way and started pulling out his mail more slowly, piece by single piece, and stacking it neatly, until she got there.

Tami watched her aunt talk with him, using her hands as she so frequently did. Coach Taylor leaned an arm atop the mailbox as he replied. Aunt Bonnie stepped closer. For a minute, they appeared to be confering about some serious matter, but the next second, the mail was on the curb, Coach Taylor's arm was around Aunt Bonnie's waist, and her lips were on his lips.

Tami's eyes widened and, feeling suddenly like a voyeur, she turned away from the window. When the kitchen door opened, she made herself seem busy stirring the pasta. Aunt Bonnie dropped the pile of mail on the counter top.

"You pick everything up?" Tami asked. "You didn't leave any on the ground, did you? I'm expecting a letter from Eric."

"On the ground?" Aunt Bonnie's cheeks redden slightly.

Shoot. Tami hadn't meant to reveal she'd been watching, but she  _was_  worried Eric's letter might have been lost.

"You saw us?"

"Sort of," Tami admitted. "So are you dating Coach Taylor again now?"

"Well, he did ask me if I wanted to go with him to see your musical next Friday. But I suggested that before we do that, we go line dancing again this Saturday at Billy Bob's. He's not a bad dancer at all. Is that okay with you?"

"Why wouldn't it be okay with me?" Tami asked.

"I have to be able to trust you to be responsible alone that night."

"Mo and I are going to the movies."

"I know. And I'll be in Forth Worth.  _That's_  why I have to trust you to be responsible."

Tami snorted and rolled her eyes. She knew Aunt Bonnie hated it almost as her own mother did when she rolled her eyes, but sometimes she couldn't help it. It was an instinctive reaction to people saying stupid things - like jerking your hand back from a hot stove. "Do you seriously think I'm less likely to do something naughty with Mo if you're in Euless than if you're in Fort Worth? There's always his house or the back seat of his Mustang." Tami never would have said such a thing to her mother. She probably shouldn't have said it to her aunt, but she was getting so used to frankness in this house, that the question just slipped out.

"Tami, be smart."

"I  _am_  being smart," she insisted, the defiance leaving her voice. She  _wanted_  her aunt's respect, even if she'd stopped believing she could ever earn her mother's. "I'm taking it slowly with Mo. I'm  _not_  having sex with him Friday night. Or anything close to sex."

"I'm glad to hear that," Aunt Bonnie said. She slid a loaf of French bread out of its wrapper and began cutting it up. "Because you're young. And the only way to know if a boy likes you for  _you_  and not for  _that_  is to wait to give him  _that_ until you know he likes _you._ "

Tami smirked. "Are you going to take your own advice, Auntie?"

Aunt Bonnie stopped cutting and raised her eyebrow at Tami. "What?"

 _"_ I hope _you'll_ be smart. I don't know about that Coach Taylor. Sometimes he just suddenly kisses women in front of his mailbox. And his pick-up has that giant bed."

Aunt Bonnie flushed. "We're taking my car. And your letter from Eric is right there." She motioned at the pile of mail with her knife. "You better go read it while I get dinner ready."

It was an obvious distraction, but it worked. Tami snatched up the letter and disappeared to her room. Stomach down on her comforter, she began reading Eric's letter:

_February 21, 1983_

_Dear Tami,_

_So I think I talked my dad into asking your aunt out again, so you better be right about her liking him, and she better say YES. Otherwise I'm going to feel like a jerk for setting him up to get knocked down again._

_You forgot to enclose that photo. Send one next time. Or don't. I'm going to be home for Easter weekend and that week after I'm going to spring training at Bowie beofre I head back to the ranch, so I guess I'll see what you look like then._

As much as Tami wanted to see Shelley, she now regretted that she'd be going back to Houston for Easter. But she'd have to meet Eric on Tuesday, at least, if he was staying for spring training. Tami felt unexpectedly nervous about the prospect.

_What do I think of Mo? I think he holds onto the ball too long and risks too many sacks. And I think he talks too much in the huddle. We don't have a lot of time in there. But I think he's pretty good at passing once he gets that thing off. I think he's more likely to overshoot than undershoot. I think he's going back to second string next season when I'm back on the team. I think he won't get a football scholarship to college, but he'll get on a team somewhere, and then he'll mostly warm the bench, so he'll decide it's not worth the effort and quit the team after his freshman year. Then he'll be a business major so he can run his own business like his dad does and make a bunch of money when he gets out of college. I don't know what he'll sell, but he'll sell something. He always raised the most money for the team fundraiser whenever we had to sell that stupid wrapping paper door to door at Christmas time. He could get anyone to buy it. He can get anyone to buy anything._

Well that wasn't exactly the feedback she'd been looking for. She didn't care what kind of football player Mo was. The part about him being able to sell anything was interesting, though. He'd sure sold her quickly on not being irritated at him for trying to undress her under the stairwell without even asking first.

_May I remind you that you asked me about my virginity before I asked you about yours? And I wouldn't have assumed you lost it if you hadn't asked me like it's just a given that everyone has. Besides, I don't care when or if you lost your virginity. It's not my business when a girl loses her virginity unless I'm the one taking it. Which I've never done, by the way. Had sex with a virgin, I mean. That seems to be a big deal to girls, so I don't think I'd want to be the guy taking it. I guess that's why I mostly dated older girls. Of course more of those have turned out to be virgins than I would have guessed._

Tami had a lot of conflicted feelings about this passage. It made her angry at the boy who had so casually taken her virginity. It  _was_  a big deal. Why had he pressured her and made her believe it meant something to him? But worse, why had she been so  _stupid_  as to imagine it did, when she hardly knew him?

The passage also made her feel a little bit of respect for Eric for being unwilling to be so casual in taking a girl's virginity. On the other hand, he seemed perfectly willing to be casual about girls who  _had_  lost their virginities. Did that mean he thought sex with a non-virgin was automatically no big deal? If so, was that how  _all_  boys thought? Now that she'd lost hers, was she just supposed to be fair game? Willing to put out for the next boyfriend who came along? Is that what Mo expected? The idea pissed her off. Of course, Mo didn't know she  _wasn't_  a virgin. And she had no plans to tell him otherwise. God, she hoped Eric didn't tell Mo the things they'd been writing each other when they were training together. He wouldn't, she decided. If he did, she had a thing or two she could hold over his head.

Tami read on:

_You're wrong. Plenty of cool girls hang out with the football team. Well, the coolest ones already have boyfriends on the team, though, and I don't ever make a move on some other guy's girl._

_The ones that just jump around from guy to guy, though, are kind of…I don't know. Shallow? Boring? I mean, they're pretty, but then they open their mouths and start talking…I don't know._

Tami tried not to laugh at that, but she couldn't help it. She knew what he meant. Some of these girls who hung out around the DQ, shooting jealous looks at Tami when she was eating off of Mo's spoon, and flirting with the other players, just said the dumbest things.

_And no, not EVERY girl I dated last semester were cheerleaders or on the drill team. One was actually in the marching band. Another one was getting her RN at Euless community college. But, okay, she did use to be a cheerleader at Bowie._

Tami felt a moment of shock to think he'd dated a college girl, but then she considered that she'd technically still been only 15 when she'd lost her virginity to that senior boy. It was only a two year's age difference in either case.

_Onto your questions…_

_My favorite board game is Risk. I like the strategy, mapping out the plays in my mind, where I'm going to attack, playing both offense and defense._

_Church? Depends on the season. My dad worships at the shrine of footblall in the fall. We do go to chruch the rest of the year, though. First United Methodist. Why? Is my dad not going anymore? I wonder if he just did that because my mom made him. We did go less last year, now that I think of it. Even when it wasn't football season we were only going about once a month._

_What animal...I'd be a unicorn, of course. Oh, wait, was I not supposed to answer that one?_

Tami snorted.

_The thing I miss most about my mom is her chocolate chip cookies. I know that sounds lame, but every Thursday in the fall, when I'd come home from school, she'd have warm chocolate chip cookies sitting on the counter, just waiting for me, and there'd be a note to wish me good luck on my game the next day. She always said something a little different, but she always ended it the same way – win or lose, I'm proud of you. It always made me feel less stressed out about playing for some reason._

Tami hated and loved how Eric's letters did this to her – made her want to go from laughing to crying in the space of just two paragraphs.

_So, I guess I'm supposed to send four questions for you too? Here goes:_

_(1) Do you want to go to college? What do you want to study if you do?_

_(2) So who are you going to root for now that you've moved from Houston to the DFW area? The Oilers or the Cowboys?_

_(3) Who do you think would win in a fight – Superman or Batman?_

Tami laughed because he'd imitated her by crossing that out and writing –  _Never mind. Stupid question._

_(4) Do you miss your dad a lot, or are you kind of glad he's out of your life now since he wasn't a good dad to begin with? Is it easier or harder that way?_

_Sincerely,_

_Eric_


	19. Chapter 19

Tami wrote Eric back the next morning:

_February 25, 1983_

_Dear Eric,_

_Busy weekend ahead. I'm going to dinner and the movies with Mo tonight. He's taking me to a romantic comedy. Isn't that sweet of him?_ _On Sunday we have a dress rehearsal in the afternoon for the musical next weekend. He has a really nice singing voice. So do you not like Mo? Like, as a friend / person / human individual? Because you've been really vague about him._

_Your dad and my aunt are going line dancing tonight, too. IN FACT - I saw them kissing by the mailbox yesterday. So you don't have to feel like a jerk about telling him to ask her out again. Does that mean you don't mind if he dates her? She's pretty cool, actually, just so you know._

_Did I ever tell you that I found out why you're at the ranch through the grapevine? DUI? Really? I guess I can't judge you for being stupid and getting drunk - I did that a few times my sophomore year. I guess I was pissed off about my dad taking off, and I felt kind of out of place with all my friends who had both parents. I just wanted to fit in and maybe get some attention from guys. It all seems kind of stupid now. But I never drove when I was drunk. Of course, I didn't have my license either. I just got it a month before I moved here. I don't drink at all anymore. Beer I mean. Or Southern Comfort. Or any of that stuff. I drink a lot of Diet Dr. Pepper. Did you drink a lot because your mom died? Do you still? I guess you can't on that ranch unless someone sneaks it in, huh?_

_I won't be here Easter weekend - going back to Houston to spend it with my mom and annoying little sis (okay, I totally miss her), but I guess I'll see you in school that Tuesday, if you'll be there for training the rest of the week. So I guess there's no point in enclosing a photo now. You'll see me in person. I'm blonde with blue eyes. That narrows it down a lot, huh? My hair has kind of a red tint to it, if that helps. Strawberry blonde, they call it. Mo calls it orange. It is NOT orange._

_So you only have sex with non-virgins, huh? Do you expect every non-virgin you date to automatically want to have sex with you? What's the longest you've ever dated anyone, anyway? It's sounds like you like to play the field. Not like Mo. When we talked on the phone last night, he said he doesn't want me dating anyone else, which I assume means we're going steady. I think he might give me a ring or something tonight. I wouldn't be surprised, anyway._

_That's sweet what your mom did. She sounds like a great mom. If I ever have kids, I'm going to try to be the most awesome mom ever. But I'm not going to be one of those stay-at-home moms like my mom was. She was - excuse my French - shit out of luck when my dad left her and flaked out on child support too. She had to go back to work and couldn't make much. Lucky for me my aunt said she'll help me with college, which answers one of your questions - yes, I want to go to college. Probably UT-Dallas or UNT because it's cheap and not super hard to get into. I'm trying to be realistic here, though my aunt says I can apply to an ivy if I want. I think she's out of her mind. With my GPA? I'm going to pull it up, but, still. What I want to major in I don't know. Drama, maybe, but that's not real practical. Education? Maybe I can do both and be a drama teacher. Or administration, and I could be a principal. Or political science, and maybe I can be governor of Texas one day. Might as well dream big, huh?_

_I'll root for the Cowboys unless they play the Oilers, then it's the Oilers. Sorry. But home is home._

_Batman would totally win because he'd just bring kryptonite._

_I do miss my dad. He was always erratic, but when he WAS being a dad - he was a lot of fun. It didn't make up for all the times he wasn't around, but it was something. Now he doesn't even call. He could be dead for all I know. I don't guess I really miss him so much as I miss the idea of having a dad. My aunt says I don't know what to look for in a man because I never really had that role model in a dad, so she's been giving me a list of things to look for - responsible, faithful, loyal, diligent, hard working - I had to interrupt her and ask, "What about a nice ass? Is that on your list?" She was not amused. She kept adding more to the list - intelligent, able to apologize, good humored... I totally flustered her by asking if she saw those things in your dad. She turned bright red. It was pretty funny._

_What if they got married one day? I think my aunt wants to stay single, but what if they did? What would that make us? Like...cousins? Guess we could never kiss then. Not that we were ever planning to, I'm just saying, that would rule out the possibility._

_Uh-oh. Now I'm just rambling. I better stop writing this and get all my studying done so Mo and I can have fun tonight._

_But I have to leave you with questions, right? Okay-_

_1 - First kiss? How old, who, what was it like?_

_2 - Where do you want to go to college? I assume you're expecting a football scholarship, to hear your dad talk about it. What would be your number one place?_

_3- Least favorite cartoon character?_

_4 - After you sow your wild oats and then get married in your mid to late thirties - yeah, I remember your plan - do you want to have kids? How many?_

_Sincerely,_

_Tami_

[*]

The aftershave was pungent. Coach Taylor had splashed on too much. He rinsed his face with warm water and then dried it before checking himself in the mirror. No visible nose hairs. No cow lick on the back of his head. He folded down his collar. He breathed on his hand to check his breath. Minty fresh. Was there anything he was forgetting?

As he made his way out of the master bathroom, his eyes fell on the framed photo he still kept on his dresser - Ivy and Eric. Eric was only seven in that one, and Ivy was grinning down at him. He felt a sudden stab of guilt, but it was interrupted by the doorbell.

Bonnie had insisted on driving. Deacon didn't know what she thought he was going to try to pull if he drove, but he decided it was best to let that slide. She felt better about dating him if she was in control of the car. So be it.

He didn't say much until they were on the highway heading for Fort Worth, when he ventured, "Sorry about the kiss. I really thought you were leaning in to kiss me."

"I was just getting ready to lean down to pick up the mail I accidentally dropped," she replied.

"I realized that after you pulled away."

She smiled. "Well, it wasn't a  _bad_  kiss. I mean, I'm still going out with you aren't I?"

"You're not letting me drive, though." He fumbled under the passenger's side seat because his legs were cramped. When the cool metal lever touched his fingers, he popped the seat back a couple of inches. "Is that a third date privilege?"

"There are no guarantees," Bonnie said. "You're not entitled to anything at any time just because we've been on x number of dates."

Deacon whistled. "You really like to lay things out, don't you?"

"I find it helps to avoid misunderstandings." She reached for the radio and turned on the country music station.

"But Eric was right, no  _does_  just meant ask again later?"

"Eric?" she asked.

"He told me that Tami told him that you liked me.  _Liked me_  liked me, as the kids say."

"Those two are getting to be quite the friends, aren't they?" Bonnie turned her head slightly to look at him. "Wait a minute. Does your son have a girlfriend?"

Deacon pointed to the road. Bonnie slammed on her brakes and then changed lanes. "No one serious," he answered. "He hasn't had a serious girlfriend since ninth grade, but he's gone on a lot of dates this past year."

"Hmmm...one of  _those_  guys, huh? He better not be trying to work his way into my niece's pants."

"I've tried to teach him to respect girls. But Eric's good-looking, he's athletic, he's talented. He's an excellent quarterback. He doesn't have to work for sex. That's part of his problem." He shrugged. "Of course, I didn't have to either when I was his age."

"No? You were a playboy, huh?"

"I was immature. Eric at least was interested in having a  _real_  girlfriend before his mom died. But I was worse than him. I had no interest in a genuine relationship until I met Ivy. She made me realize some things are  _worth_  working for. She was my first steady girlfriend. My first love."

"Really?" Bonnie asked with a raised eyebrow. "Wow. I've been in love five times already."

"You fall that easily?" he asked.

Maybe there was a note of caution in his voice, because she said, "Don't worry. I'm not in love with you, Deacon. I like you, though." She smiled at him. "I might even  _like you_  like you."

He pointed to the road again.

She slammed on her brakes, then flicked the turn signal angrily. Bonnie sped up and went around the car in front of her, muttering, "What are all the Sunday drivers doing out on a Saturday?"


	20. Chapter 20

Tami got home late from her dress rehearsal for her musical. She and Mo had been making out backstage in the costume closet when they didn't have to be on. It was mildly thrilling, but Tammy was intermittently annoyed by how handsy Mo became. His hands were always up her shirt and on her breasts these days. She'd given into the inevitably of it all. It wasn't as if she was letting him into her  _pants_  yet, after all. Besides, she liked his touch well enough, she just wished he was less of a squeezer and more of a caresser.

When she got home, she saw the firepit glowing in Coach Taylor's backyard and heard her aunt laughing. Tami could make out her aunt's arm, with the silver charm bracelet she loved to wear, and the glass of wine in her hand, but she couldn't see Coach Taylor around the edge of the house.

When she got inside, she immediately rummaged through the mail. She wasn't expecting a letter from Eric until tomorrow or Monday, but it was already there, and the envelope was thicker than usual. She couldn't believe how long the letter was this time, three college-ruled sheets of paper.

_March 1, 1983_

_Dear Tami,_

_Sorry I don't get to see your musical on Saturday. Guess you'll have had your first performance by the time you get this. How did it go? I'd love to see Mo sing. That's got to be hilarious. I've heard he's good though. That's one of the reason girls like him, I guess. Girls seem to like guys who can sing. And who take them to romantic comedies, I guess. That's a huge sacrifice, like throwing your coat down on a puddle or something, huh? Me, if I take a girl out, I always take her to an action flick. Everyone knows you get more action at an action flick than you do at a romance. It really puts girls in the mood._

_So I called my dad and asked him about his big line dancing date with your aunt. I think he was shocked I called him. I haven't done that since I've been here. He always calls me. Anyway, he wouldn't say much about her, but I'm getting this vibe that he actually likes her. I still think it's weird, him dating._

_So now you know. Yeah. DUI. I guess you can't keep secrets in a small town, huh? Not that Euless is all that small. Don't be so self-righteous about it, though. Sounds like the only reason YOU haven't gotten a DUI is that you can get guys like Mo to drive you wherever you want to go._

_So did you get sent away for the same reason I did? Bad grades and too much drinking? My grades weren't as bad as yours, though. I had a C average. I didn't almost flunk out. I guess getting arrested is a bigger deal than that, though. I don't drink anymore either. I'm not saying I never will again, like after a big win or something, when I get back to Euless. But I think I'm done driving through corn fields and sleeping it off in the drunk tank. (I didn't really sleep it off. My dad bailed me out so he could yell at me while I was still a little buzzed.)_

_That's not what embarrassed you though, was it? Back at your old school? Drinking and bad grades? What DID embarrass you? I guess you're never gong to say because...yeah. It embarrasses you. Promise I won't make fun, though._

_So, in answer to your question - If a girl dates me, and she's NOT a virgin, yeah, I assume she probably wants to have sex with me. That's WHY she's dating me. She's not doing it for my brilliant wit (my wit's kind of average) or my singing ability (which is completely nonexistent) or for the romantic comedies (because I only do action films, remember). So yeah, I DO expect it. But I date virgins, too. I don't discriminate. And I don't have sex with virgins, which means I haven't actually had that much sex, because there are more virgins out there than you know. I'd never have guessed that from all the b.s. stories I've heard in the locker room._

Tami knew that. She'd realized teenagers having sex wasn't nearly as common as she thought after she'd thrown her own virginity away on that jerk. But she'd thought  _everyone_ was having sex back then, and she was "the prude," with the religious mom, who got too-good grades, and who wasn't even allowed to wear short skirts. She'd wanted to change that prudish image. She'd changed it all right. She'd become "the slut" almost overnight. It seemed there was no way for a girl to win when it came to sex in high school - damned if you do, damned if you don't. Tease, prude, slut, or whore. Take your pick.

It made her angry.

_So, no, I don't have to have sex with every girl I date, but I don't date most for long anyway._

_God, I sound like an ass when I re-read that line. No wonder my father gave me that lecture._

Tami wondered what a lecture from Coach Taylor would be like. He'd never said so much as "Boo!" to her, though she'd sometimes see him in the gym, on her way to class, hands on his hips, boys all taking a knee around him and listening to some monologue she couldn't hear. Maybe it sucked to have a coach for a father, who was always lecturing you and disciplining you and pointing out your need for improvement, and expecting so much of you, but it was better than having no father at all. She wondered if Eric really appreciated that.

_Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to a steady girlfriend, in theory, and I've never cheated on a girl. If I'm seeing more than one person, every person I'm seeing KNOWS. Because I really don't think it's cool to not let a girl know you've got another girlfriend in like another town or something. It's just that I haven't found anyone I want to go steady with, and I guess I haven't really been in "relationship condition" lately. The one time I had a steady relationship, it didn't end so well. She kind of ripped my heart out of my chest and then stomped all over it._

_I have no idea why I'm telling you this stuff. I swear to God, if you ever show these letters to anyone, I'll….come up with something._

_So, Governor of Texas is a cool goal and all, but I don't know what you think is so wrong about being a stay-at-home mom. That's kind of like being governor of your own house, isn't it? And Treasurer. And Secretary of Education. And Secretary of Housing and Planning. And Surgeon General. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, at least from the time I was born until I was in junior high school. It was GREAT. It made my dad's life a lot easier, I tell you what. Made my life easier too. Nothing wrong with making people's lives easier. That ship ran smoothly when she was in charge. I guess I get what you're saying, though, about needing to be able to support yourself if your husband is a jerk or you get walked out on like your mom did. But my mom didn't have to worry about that. My dad would sooner cut off his throwing arm than walk out on her._

_Which is why it's kind of weird he's dating your aunt._

_Really weird._

_So... (Last semester in English Mrs. Wilcox said I really have to work on my paragraph transitions. Apparently I use SO too much. I don't know why you have to transition at all. I know where I've been. I just want to get where I'm going. Who needs to transition?)_

_So...how are you at the SAT? Have you done a practice test yet? Because your GPA might not be good enough for a good school, but if you kick butt on the SAT, that can be enough. You don't have to settle for UNT. (Not that that would be so bad. You know, Principal Martin graduated from UNT and he's, like, principal.) I did pretty well on the PSAT, so I think I'll do fine on the SAT, and I'm not that worried about my grades, except for the fact that my dad blows a gasket if I get less than a B in anything. But as long as I keep a C average, they're going to accept me just because of the football. He knows that and he STILL rides me about my grades. When am I ever going to use any of this stuff? Who cares? I want to go to A &M, but it depends where I get the best scholarship. I'd consider Oklahoma if the deal was sweet enough._

_My dad is NOT marrying your aunt. If he did, I don't think that would make us cousins. Or if it did, we'd be like second cousins once removed or something. I never understood how that cousin thing works. My friend Billy here says that in Texas you can legally marry your first cousin once removed, but not your first cousin. I don't think I want to know why he knows that._

_Onto your questions..._

_1\. My first kiss was Kimberley Rider. She was thirteen and I was twelve and it lasted nine seconds. Yes, I counted. We were playing spin the bottle at a junior high football party, and she was the prettiest girl in that whole school. I made the bottle land on her. I kind of practiced before the party, because my buddy told me we were going to play. I must have been a good kisser, because she asked me to the 7th grade dance, but she never became my girlfriend, because she ended up dancing with my buddy more than me. They were still "dating" after 8th grade when I moved from Dillon to Euless. That was not the girl who stomped on my heart, though. That the girl I started dating in 9th grade. We broke up after my mom died._

_2\. Answered that. A &M._

_3\. Tweety bird. I just want Silvester to get him once. JUST ONCE._

_4\. Yeah, sure I'm all for kids when I finally settle down. Four. At least one girl and one boy and then I don't care what the other two are. I hated being an only child. You get blamed for EVERYTHING. And they expect so much of you._

Four kids! That was not the answer Tami had been expecting from a guy, especially a guy with a DUI who didn't have sex with non-virgins and who wanted to "sow his wild oats." He probably thought it would be no work for him, that his stay-at-home wife would do it all. Maybe that's why Coach Taylor had needed to send him away to the ranch – because his wife had done  _everything_  and he didn't know how to raise Eric on his own. Aunt Bonnie better consider what she was getting into with that man. He might be a bit of a chauvinist pig. Except, he seemed to be really nice. He'd always been nice to Tami, anyway, and he seemed to be treating her aunt well.

That thought made Tami curious, and she went and peered out the living room window that overlooked Coach Taylor's backyard. They were on the bench seat now. Her aunt had abandoned the lawn chair she'd been sitting in earlier, and he had his arm around her and his head leaned back, his coach's cap tilted down slightly over his eyes. Aunt Bonnie's head was on his shoulder. Tami didn't know if he was asleep or looking at the stars, but they both looked very relaxed.

For a fleeting moment, Tami wished her mother would date someone like Coach Taylor. She'd never wanted her mother to date before, and she would be gone from home in less than two years, but the idea that Shelley could have a stable, responsible, strict father figure around the house appealed to her. Shelley was getting a little flaky when it came to her constantly shifting interests, and Tami wasn't sure about her friends, one of whom had already been caught smoking and drinking. In 8th grade!

Tami shut the blinds and read the rest of Eric's letter.

_Okay, your turn. I'm running out of question ideas, but….here goes:_

_1\. Why are you dating Mo? Just because he's the first guy who asked you out at Bowie High, or because you really like him?_

_2\. First real boyfriend? How long did you date him?_

_3\. Favorite holiday?_

_4\. Worst book you were ever forced to read?_

_Sincerely,_

_Eric_

It was already late, and Tami had to be to school at 10 AM to prepare for the 1 PM matinee for the musical tomorrow, but she pulled out a pen and sheet of paper and started writing Eric back anyway.


	21. Chapter 21

Coach Taylor lay a hand gently on the side of Bonnie's breast and began caressing it through the thin cotton of her sweater. The wine glasses were on the cement porch under the bench, and the fire pit had receded to a low glow. She pulled away.

Deacon sighed. He put his hand on his knee. She never let him get very far. Not even as far as he'd gotten on a typical first date in 9th grade. And frankly, he was horny as hell. It had been a long time since he'd had sex. A  _very_  long time. And Bonnie was…well…she was fun. Lively. Unpredictable. He suspected she'd be no different in bed. What the hell was he doing that was so wrong that he couldn't even manage to get past first base?

Maybe it was the fact that he even  _thought_  of it as first base. God, it had been a long time since he'd dated. He hadn't even really dated Ivy. They'd been friends, and then he'd been in love, and then they'd been married. And  _then_  they'd had sex, because, even though Warren Maddox thought Deacon Taylor had knocked up his daughter, Ivy had actually said "no sex until the wedding night." No girl had ever said anything like that to him before. It might have explained his rush to the altar, in retrospect, but he'd never regretted marrying that woman.

The last time he'd gone on a  _date_ , though, he'd still been a teenager. And those girls had practically thrown themselves at him, even back then, pre-sexual revolution. They might not have wanted to go all the way, but they sure had wanted to go a good part of the way. Bonnie just seemed to want to pedal in place.

"I should probably be going," she said. "I saw the light on in Tami's room. She's home. She's going to be wondering what I've been doing over here for so long."

"Well, you haven't been doing a thing."

Bonnie raised an eyebrow.

He immediately regretted his tone and modified it. "I had a good time tonight. Did you?" He wondered if she had. He seriously wondered.

"I did," she said. "Thank you for the wine."

She slid away from him on the bench and seemed about to stand up when she paused. "Deacon, may I be I frank with you?"

"You always are." He stared into the glowing embers. "So go ahead and pull the bandaid off." He'd tried so hard to grow up for Ivy, to be a dependable husband and father, that maybe he'd grown up  _too much_. He figured Bonnie was probably going to say that she'd decided she wasn't attracted to him, that he was too square for her. Not that anyone used that word anymore,  _square_. That was kind of a square word to use. But she would say he was too boring, perhaps. Predictable. Unadventurous. Not the sort of younger, exciting, and more enlightened men she was used to dating.

"I really like you."

Or maybe she  _wasn't_  going to say that.

"I do, but…"

Or maybe she  _was._

"…I want to take things slowly. Maybe very slowly. And I completely understand if you don't want to do that. You're a man, and a fairly..." She smiled, " _masculine_  man at that. I'm sure you had a vigorous sex life with your wife."

Coach Taylor flushed as red as the embers in the fire pit.

"So if you'd rather not continue this, and you'd rather date someone who will jump into bed with you sooner, I won't hold it against you. We can still be friends."

"I don't want jump in bed with someone else. I want to jump in bed with you."  _Oh shit._  Had he really said that? In those words?

She laughed. "Well, it's not going to happen anytime soon."

"Very well."

"Very well?"

"Mhm." He nodded. "Very well."

"Very well…you're ending it?"

"No! Very well, I'll….wait."

"It could be a long wait," she warned him.

"I've got not nothing better to do with my free time."

She laughed again. She leaned in and kissed him, softly, with a little tongue. Bonnie pulled away and glanced up at the lighted window in the second story of her small house next door. "I bet she's writing Eric. There was a letter from him on the counter."

"I wonder what they say to each other. My son's not much of a talker."

"I wonder where he gets  _that_  from?" Bonnie asked with a twinkle in her green eyes.

"I was  _listening_  tonight. To you. I'm a good listener. That's what Ivy always used to - " He stopped abruptly.

"You're going to mention her from time to time. It's okay. I'm not trying to compete with your dead wife. I'm sure there's no one who can compete anyway. You were married for years and years. But just because you had a six-course dinner doesn't mean you can't enjoy a burger."

Coach Taylor shifted his hat up on his head. "I don't think you're a burger. I think you're probably a fine sirloin that has to marinate for a long while."

She grimaced. "That was a terrible line."

He slid off his hat and scratched his forehead. "Yeah it was, wasn't it?"

"Kind of cute, though." She leaned over and kissed him again, more quickly this time, and stood. "I've really got to get going so I can get ready to steam open that envelope and read that letter Tami's just wrote."

"You do that?" Coach Taylor's voice rose on the  _that._

Bonnie laughed. "No, of course not! Can't say I'm not  _tempted,_  though."

He stood. "Well, if you ever succumb to temptation, let me know what's in them."

She smiled, waved goodbye, and headed back toward her house, as though he wasn't going to  _walk_  her there. He corrected that misconception, and left her at the back door with another kiss.

[*]

When Tami came into the kitchen to put her envelope in the to-mail pile, Aunt Bonnie was looking out the window wistfully at Coach Taylor, who was cleaning out the ashes from his fire pit in the back yard.

"Why didn't you just stay longer instead of moping after him through the window?" Tami asked. "You're an adult. You don't have a curfew like me."

Aunt Bonnie turned around. "Is that a letter to Eric?"

"Nice subject change."

"Your curfew is perfectly reasonable, Tami. I'm not your mother, but I'm not your best friend either."

"No, you're the semi-cool aunt," Tami said with a smile. She opened the fridge and pulled out a diet Coke. "So tell me how not to be nervous about my musical tomorrow. And  _don't_ tell me to imagine the audience naked. There are a lot of gnarly boys in that audience."

[*]

Tami wasn't expecting the flowers at the end of the show. She thought they were from Mo at first, until she realized they were from Aunt Bonnie. She'd watched from the front row. Coach Taylor had sat beside her, occasionally holding her hand throughout the production, which Tami guessed must mean their relationship was officially public. Not that either of them had been hiding it before, but it was one thing for them to date outside of a school and another for Tami to have to hear, "Who's the hot number with Coach Taylor?" backstage from the boys. "He's done well for himself!"

"Nice tits!" one said.

"Hey! That's my aunt!"

"Sorry, Tami."

Tami had thought drama was supposed to have a lot of gay guys. It hadn't worked out that way. All of these guys were not only  _not_  gay, but they were too often trying to get a peak into the girl's dressing room.

Mo at least didn't join in the backslapping. He grinned at her, though, and asked, "So your aunt is  _dating_  Coach Taylor? That's interesting."

"What's interesting about it?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I guess it's not weird for you. He's not your Coach. And he's not your teacher for anything."

"Because he doesn't teach anything." Other than a athletics class and a weight lifting class, which consisted primarily of his team members, Coach Taylor didn't teach. He served as an Athletic Director and apparently did a lot of paperwork and scheduling and ordering of equipment.

"I wonder how Eric's going to take Coach dating her," Mo mused. "He kind of flew off the handle when his mom died."

"Well, it's a big deal," Tami said. "Your mom dying! If everyone was expecting him to just go on as normal and act like nothing was wrong, no wonder he flew off the handle!"

"Why so defensive of Eric?" Mo asked suspiciously. "What's he telling you in those pen pal letters?"

"Nothing much. Just stuff about the ranch. It's just...you know. I lost my dad. Not the same way, but I didn't make the best choices after he took off."

"What kind of not-best choices did you make?"

Tami looked around at the actors and actresses moving in and out of the dressing rooms. "I need to get changed."

[*]

Later, when she exited the theater into the hallway, Aunt Bonnie was looking in the trophy case while Coach Taylor was telling her about Bowie Highs various sports awards. "And what's this one?" she asked, pointing to a plaque. "Texas High School Football Coach of the Year?"

"Aww...that...uh..." Coach Taylor scratched the back of his head. He didn't have his cap on. He'd come in khakis and a button down shirt tonight. "That was a losing season. I don't know why I got that. Something about building the boys' characters, they said."

Aunt Bonnie smiled. Coach Taylor noticed Tami and turned away from the case. Tami's aunt asked her, "Are you ready to head home?"

"I can take her, Ms. Hayes," Mo announced from behind her. He'd followed her out of the theater. "Some of the drama kids are going out for ice cream. Post-show, thing, you know."

"I don't know any ice cream place that is open past eleven p.m.," Aunt Bonnie said. "And it's 10:45. And Tami's curfew on Saturdays is midnight."

Mo scratched his ear. "Well...uh..."

"I hear the drama parties are worse than the football parties," Coach Taylor told Aunt Bonnie in a low whisper, though Tami heard. "Drugs instead of just alcohol."

"Yeah, I think Tami's going to catch a ride home with us, Mo," Aunt Bonnie said. "But you're welcome to take her out to brunch tomorrow." She smiled, put a hand on Tami's shoulder, and began ushering her out the door.

Tami was irritated at her aunt for being meddlesome, but she also hadn't really wanted to go to the after-party. After losing her virginity to a near stranger in another absolute stranger's bedroom, while music thundered downstairs, those kind of parties had lost their allure for her. "I'll call you," she told Mo over her shoulder.


	22. Chapter 22

Eric found his grandfather alone in the kitchen, sitting at the table and writing checks to pay bills. "Mail come yet?" he asked. It seemed to be arriving later every day.

Grandpa motioned to a pile on the table, and Eric walked over and anxiously sorted through it. Grandpa chuckled. "You're really getting into this pen pal thing, aren't you?"

Eric drew out Tami's letter. He wanted to disappear to read it, but thought it would be rude to run off right away, so instead he sat down across from his grandfather. "She's a more interesting…uh…writer than I thought she'd be."

Grandpa tore of a check and slid it into an envelope.

"My dad's dating again," he said suddenly. It wasn't something he'd really talked about with Grandpa Maddox before.

"Is he?"

"Yeah. Can you believe that?"

"Well, it's been over a year. I'm not surprised. Before your mother, your father was – " Grandpa stopped talking and tore off another check. There must be a lot of bills, running a ranch like this.

"He was what?"

"He was a ladies' man."

" _My_  dad?" Eric chuckled. "No way."

"I used to be afraid he'd leave my daughter. Or cheat on her. But I was wrong about that. He was a devoted husband. I should have given him the benefit of the doubt." Grandpa Maddox looked across the table and smiled. He had a dimple in his wrinkled cheek. "You look a little stunned."

Eric shook his head. "Yeah. Well…it's just, he was always getting on my case about dating too many girls this past year. Said I should take my dating life more seriously. Said I needed to be more of a gentleman."

"And what do you think?"

Eric shrugged. "Think maybe he was right. Didn't really…I don't know. Didn't help me feel any less empty, all those girlfriends."

"Do you think that's what your father's doing now? Trying to fill a void?"

"Don't know. He's not running around with a bunch of women, though. I think he's only dating the one." He lifted the letter. "Tami's aunt."

"Is that why your anxious to read the letter? She keeps you posted about your father? You know, you could talk to him  _yourself_."

"I do. Sometimes. Twice a week. On the phone."

"For six to eight minutes, like clockwork," Grandpa said. He licked an envelope. "Well, I'm sure your anxious to read your letter.

Eric took this as permission to disappear, which he did, out to the back porch this time. The sun was setting. The rest of the boys were hanging out in the living room playing cards, chess, or checkers, or taking showers and getting ready for bed.

He tore open the letter.

_March 4, 1983_

_Dear Eric,_

_The musical went well. We got a standing ovation, but I think that's just something parents do._

_Okay, I get your point. Mo took me to the romantic comedy to score points. But it worked. At least he makes an effort. It doesn't sound like YOU make much of an effort with the girls you date. Except maybe for that one serious girlfriend. So...who was she? What happened there? Why did you break up?_

_Back at my old school, I did something I regretted. And people talked about it all over school. But that's not what I got sent to live with my aunt. That was the grades and the drinking. My mom never knew about the embarrassing thing I did. And that's personal and I'm certainly not telling you in a letter._

_I really don't think you should assume that just because a girl's not a virgin she wants to have sex with every guy she dates. She could just be dating a guy because she likes him, or she has fun with him, or she wants to get to know him better, or she wants a boyfriend to go places with, or whatever. She might have decided that even though she's not a virgin anymore, she doesn't ever want to have sex again unless it's in a very serious relationship and she loves the guy. You don't know what she's thinking, so don't assume. And yeah, you do sound a little bit like an ass, but at least you realize it. I think some guys never do._

_I didn't say there was anything WRONG with being a stay-at-home mom. It's just not something I'm ever going to do. I don't think it's smart to rely on a man like that. You just never know._

_I've started studying for the S.A.T and I did okay on my first practice test. I guess you're right. If I really study hard I could go somewhere better than UNT. Not an ivy, but maybe UT Austin or A &M._

_Your friend Billy sounds like an interesting character. I wish I could meet him someday. Are you making friends with people there you never would have back home?_

_You were conniving with the spin the bottle thing. So you CAN put effort into getting a girl when you have to! Sounds like it might be a little too easy for you. I guess because you're so good-looking and you're good at football? I mean, because we've established you can't sing or endure romantic comedies._

Tami thought he was good-looking? He wasn't entirely surprised. She'd sought out his picture in the trophy case, and most girls seemed to think he was good-looking. But Tami hadn't actually  _said_  she thought so. And she'd seemed pretty indifferent to him, as far as that sort of thing went. There'd been nothing flirtatious in any of her letters. Most girls would have flirted with him by now, after seeing his photo. It was flattering that they did but he also sometimes wondered if they would like him if they knew him. The  _real_  him. The him who was writing these letters, in pooint of fact. The him who was more than a good-looking football player to show off at dances and parties.

_I'm with you on Silvester getting Tweetie Bird. I want to see coyote get roadrunner just once too. Not eat him, but get him and then maybe have a change of heart, like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and then let him go._

_FOUR kids! That's insane. I suppose you think your wife is going to do all the work? I think I want two. One girl and one boy. If I ever get married. I'm not sure I even want to get married. My mom had a pretty crappy marriage, and my aunt seems to have had a fun and fulfilling life without ever having to get chained to anyone. She's dated a lot of hot guys – I mean, not all at once. I don't want to give you the wrong impression. But, you know, she's in her thirties. Over time, she has._

_Being the older child's no picnic either. You STILL get blamed for everything. Even when your little sister CLEARLY started it. Because you're OLDER and you should KNOW BETTER. Ugh. And your mom still expects so much of you. Especially when your dad's unreliable and then he's gone. You have to help run the house like an adult almost. That sucks. You think your dad waking you up early to run plays and making you stay up late to study sucks? Try getting up early to mow the lawn and do the laundry, and then staying up late to do the dishes and mop the floor and plan the grocery list for the week, down to the penny, because you're almost out of pennies._

_Now for your questions. For your information, Mo was NOT, in fact, the first person to ask me out. Some random guy in the hallway did the first day I was here. But I didn't know him at all so I said no thank you._

Why would some random guy in the hallway ask her out? Guys usually only did that to very hot chicks, even when they knew they didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of being accepted. It was like a peacock displaying its feathers.

_My first real boyfriend? Well…Mo I guess. And I've dated him for about two months now._

Wait. Wasn't she NOT a virgin? Did that mean she'd lost her virginity to a guy who was NOT her real boyfriend? Was THAT the thing she regretted? That hypothetical girl who might not want to have sex again until it's someone she's in a serious relationship with and she loves? Eric thought maybe that hypothetical girl was  _her_.

He wondered how long Mo would keep dating her when he found out she wasn't putting out for just anyone. Mo wasn't exactly a playboy, he didn't have the clout – or, at least, he hadn't when Eric left Euless. But Mo had bragged in the locker room about his Grapevine girl and how hot and heavy they were. Maybe he wouldn't care if Tami put out as long as that thing with the other girl was still going on and he got to see her whenever he was staying with his dad. Maybe Tami was his Euless girl – someone to take to parties and dances.

Eric felt bad for Tami if that was the case. Especially if Mo was her first real boyfriend. She was going to get her heart broken something awful. On the other hand, she hadn't answered his question about  _why_  she was dating him. How much did she really like him?

Eric continued reading:

_My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving because it isn't about getting anything (like Christmas presents or Halloween candy, or Valentine's day cards). It's the only holiday that's not totally commercialized. And I love, love, love mashed potatoes. And you always get them on Thanksgiving._

_The worst book I was ever forced to read was Oliver Twist. Ninth grade English. Oh God Dickens is so incredibly BORING. You know he got paid by the word? It shows._

_Question time for you:_

_1._ _What's your favorite animal? (Lame, I know, but I'm running out of questions.)_

_2._ _Would you rather date an ugly girl you respected or a pretty girl who annoyed you?_

_3._ _Do you have someone in mind to take to Homecoming in September?_

_4._ _Do you have any hobbies besides football?_

_Your Pal,_

_Tami_


	23. Chapter 23

Tami was sitting with her legs curled up on the couch and was about ready to read Eric's letter when her aunt told her they were going to Coach Taylor's house for dinner and she should be ready in fifteen minutes. "Why am  _I_  going?" she asked. "Don't you want to be alone with him?"

"Because it's dinner time, and it was a last-minute invite, and he knows you're home and that feeding you is ultimately my responsibility." Aunt Bonnie sat down in the armchair, took off one of her flats, and massaged her foot. She'd just gotten home from work.

"Well, I can just eat leftovers here." Tami wasn't thrilled about the possibility of having to share an entire meal with a coach she saw in the halls of the school at some point every day. It was weird enough having to nod to him and smile, all the while knowing he was her aunt's  _boyfriend_ , if that's what you called a forty-something man who was dating a thirty-something woman. "You go. I'll be fine here by myself. It's not like I've never spent an evening by myself before."

"You're going. He sees you as part of the package deal and wants to have you over once for dinner. Besides, he has too much brisket."

"Then bring home the leftovers when you're done."

"Be ready in fifteen minutes," said Aunt Bonnie, slipping off her other shoe.

"Why are you taking off your shoes if we're leaving in fifteen minutes?"

Aunt Bonnie stood and picked up her flats. "Because I need to put on my sexy cowgirl boots."

"Oh my God," Tami moaned. "This is going to be so awkward."

"Suck it up, buttercup," her aunt said as she began to walk down the hallway toward her bedroom.

Tami sighed. She didn't need to  _get ready_  to be a third wheel. Jeans and long-sleeve t-shirt, which she already had on, seemed a sufficient outfit for that purpose. She could slip into her tennis shoes by the front door when they headed out. So instead of "getting ready," she opened Eric's letter.

_March 8, 1983_

_Dear Tami,_

_If you must know – and apparently you must, because you're kind of nosy - my girlfriend broke up with me about three months after my mom died because I wasn't any fun anymore. There you have it. I'm Mr. No Fun. So after she dumped me, I had a LOT of fun. Tons of fun. With lots of other girls. It didn't seem to bother her, though. Probably because she started dating the captain of the baseball team, who was loads of fun, I guess. But I'm over it now. That was eleven months ago anyway. And we only dated for - I don't know - about half of my high school dating life so far._

"What a mean bitch!" Tami exclaimed.

" _What_  did you say?" called Aunt Bonnie from her bedroom.

"I said, what a cheap stitch! There's a tear in my shirt! Don't worry. I'll throw on a sweatshirt before we go."

There was no response from her aunt, who seemed to accept the explanation, so Tami kept reading:

_Billy's something else for sure. So's Dante. I had all these stereotypes of all the guys here, and I was so wrong. Well, not about ALL of them. But definitely about Billy and Dante. Yeah, I'd never be friends with either of them back home, but…I don't know. We get a long pretty cool here._

_Getting girls isn't as easy for me as you think. I'm actually kind of shy. I crushed on Mary Ellen – that was my steady girlfriend – for half of ninth grade before I got the courage to ask her out. And I was bold with all those other girls after she dumped me mostly because I drank and got myself buzzed enough to get over my shyness. I don't know why I'm this way. My mom sure wasn't. She could talk to anyone anytime and did. She was so outgoing. My dad's reserved, but I wouldn't say he's shy like me. He can talk to strangers just fine without feeling weird about it, I think. He can adjust to most social situations and know what the right thing to say is. So I don't know where I get that shyness from. You probably don't believe me, because I haven't been at all shy in these letters, but writing to someone is a completely different thing than talking to someone face to face. Plus, I kind of forgot I might actually meet you one day._

One day soon, as a matter of fact, Tami thought. She'd be back from visiting Mom and Shelley on April 4, and when school started again on April 5, Eric would be there for spring training. She made a note to herself to try not to make him feel awkward. She'd have to do most of the talking when they met. Of course, now  _she_  was starting to feel a little nervous about meeting him herself. Writing  _was_ completely different than talking face to face. She'd written a lot of things to him that she wouldn't normally have said to a guy she hadn't known very long. She was outgoing, but she wasn't bare-your-soul-to-strangers outgoing. And yet…she kind of  _had_  bared her soul to Eric in her letters. Just a little bit of it, anyway.

Tami sighed, feeling that nervous knot in her stomach at the thought of meeting him, and read on:

_I like mashed potatoes, too, but I like sweet potatoes even better, especially when my mom put those littler marshmallows on top and all the brown sugar._

Here he drew a picture of a mouth drooling, which made Tami laugh.

_Onto your questions:_

_1\. My favorite animal is a dog. Because it's loyal. I'm big on loyalty. I hate it when people tell me one thing and then do another behind my back. Some guys are like that. Even some guys on the team. Like some of them two-time their girlfriends – I don't mean date around, which I admit I've done, but I mean make BOTH their girlfriends think she's the ONLY ONE. So I don't know if I can fully trust them to be straight with me. Now, some guys will be straight with other guys even if they aren't honest with their girls, but I just find it easier to trust a guy who's straight with everyone._

Tami read that answer again. It seemed like he'd kind of gotten onto a non-dog-related tangent there, and it made her a little uneasy.

_2\. Ugly girl I respect or pretty girl who annoys me? Hmmm….Well, I got together with a totally hot girl a couple times who turned out to be so mean and shallow that I started to notice she had kind of a big nose and that one of her eyes was a little droopy and she really wasn't even that pretty after all. So I guess if we're talking one or two dates, some making out, I'll take the pretty annoying girl, but if we're talking someone I have to KEEP dating? Like, someone I have to deal with and be around and spend tons of time with? I'd rather have the ugly girl I respect. Besides, if I respect her, she'll probably start looking less ugly over time anyway, the same way a pretty girl starts looking less pretty when she's annoying._

_3\. Homecoming? God, no, I haven't thought that far ahead. I won't be back for good until August, so I'll only have a few weeks to find someone to take to the dance. I HAVE to go, though. You can't not go to the Homecoming dance when you're on the football team. But that's a big deal, because the girl you invite to that starts thinking maybe you want to be her boyfriend. So thanks for stressing me out about that._

_4\. I don't really have time for hobbies besides football. But – don't laugh – I like to dance. My mom made me take a stupid ballroom dance class when I was 13 because she said it would make me less shy and I needed to know how to dance properly and I'd thank her when I impressed the girls. I tried to explain to her that NO ONE ballroom dances anymore, that we just kind of shuffle our feet around at slow dances and jump up and down at fast dances, but she was like, "Yeah, I know, that's the problem!" And she made me take it. And I HATED it the first two weeks. And then it was kind of fun, even though I was paired with like a forty-year-old woman. So it's not really a hobby, but, I like it._

_Your turn –_

_1\. So what EXACTLY do you like about Mo, besides that he can sing and kind of play football? You never did tell me._

_2\. Would you rather date a guy who was kind of boring but you could trust, or a guy who was tons of fun but you always kind of had a vague sense he might be lying to you?_

_3\. You think you'll go with Mo to Homecoming next year? Think you'll still be together then? Think you'll still be living with your aunt?_

_4\. The guy you regret losing your virginity to – how big an asshole was he?_

Tami gasped. How had he  _known_? She hadn't  _said_  that!

"What's wrong?" Aunt Bonnie asked anxiously. She was just emerging from the hallway.

"Nothing." Tami hastily folded the letter and shoved it in her jean pocket.

"Did Eric write something that upset you?"

"No," Tami lied. "Let's go." She stood up and walked quickly past her aunt toward her shoes. "I'm famished."


	24. Chapter 24

When they walked into Coach Taylor's kitchen, his eyes went straight to Aunt Bonnie's cowgirl boots and then up her long legs. Then he quickly looked away. It was subtle, but not so subtle Tami didn't notice it. She supposed her aunt knew what she was doing when it came to footwear.

The evening just got more awkward from there. Coach Taylor made corny jokes that Tami's aunt seemed to find strangely funny, even though they weren't funny at all. He claimed his homemade barbecue sauce was the "best in North Texas," and Aunt Bonnie told him it was "at least the fourth best" she'd ever tasted. Then he challenged her to furnish the three superior sauces for his inspection.

"I can't let you taste them all," Aunt Bonnie said. "My granddaddy and my daddy are both dead, so they aren't making barbecue anymore. But I'll have you over to my house sometime and let you taste mine."

"I would  _love_  to taste yours."

Tami sawed into the baked potato on her plate and hoped against hope that wasn't some kind of  _double entendre_. (That was one of her vocabulary words in English this week.)

Eric's father tried several times to include Tami in the conversation, asking about what she was going to do with her time now that the musical was over, when she thought she'd return to her mother's house in Houston, where she wanted to go to college, and if she was looking forward to playing volleyball next fall. She responded, but in a cursory manner. Her mind was elsewhere. She couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Eric had figured out she'd humiliated herself by throwing her virginity away on an asshole. And then, to make matters worse, Coach Taylor said, "How is my son? I think you may actually have more communication with him than I do."

"Eric's fine," Tami said. She pushed back her chair. "I'm sorry, but my stomach feels a little sick. I think I'm going to go home and lie down." She stood up. "Thank you for the dinner, Coach Taylor. Don't hurry back, Aunt Bonnie." She rushed from the house.

[*]

"I hope it wasn't my cooking," Coach Taylor said, looking through the kitchen window at the retreating girl. He didn't interact with Tami much, but she generally seemed respectful and cheerful to him. She'd been acting a bit rudely and indifferently tonight. Teenagers with attitudes always irritated him, but what bothered him tonight was that he had wanted to make a good impression on Bonnie's niece in order to show Bonnie that he was serious about his involvement with her. Yet it seemed everything he had said tonight either annoyed or upset the girl, and he couldn't keep a conversation going with her.

"It wasn't. She got a letter from Eric today, and I think something in it upset her."

Deacon jerked his head back from the window and stared at her. "What? What did he say?"

"Well, I don't know. I don't actually read her private correspondence. I only  _joke_  about reading it."

"If that son of mine said anything inappropriate, I swear to God, I will drive down to that ranch – "

"- Deacon, relax."

He picked up his knife and cut into his brisket.

"Whatever it is, these kids need to work it out themselves," Bonnie assured him. "And I think they will. Because I think this correspondence has been good for both of them. Tami's been opening up to me bit by bit, and you said Eric's attitude has been improving. I don't think that's just owing to your father-in-law's influence or mine. I think they're becoming friends and helping each other through some things. And I think they could both use a good friend."

"Hmmmm. Interesting. A few weeks ago you were worried he was trying to get in her pants."

"Well, he probably is," Bonnie said. "He's  _male_. But that doesn't mean he doesn't respect her."

"That doesn't sound very respectful."

"Well,  _you're_  trying to get in my pants, aren't you?" Bonnie asked. "And you respect me."

"I am  _not_  trying to get  _in_ your pants!" Deacon insisted.

"No? If I suggested going to your bedroom right now, you'd turn me down?"

Deacon rested his fork and knife on his plate. "Of course not! But that phrase – trying to get in your pants. I don't like it. It isn't an accurate descriptor of what I'm  _trying_  – and quite clearly  _failing_  – to do."

Bonnie chuckled and took a sip of the glass of red wine he had poured her. "You might be closer to succeeding than you think."

Deacon grinned and leaned forward over the table. "Really?"

"Really." Bonnie took another small sip. "Not tonight, mind you." His smile faded. "But every day you get a little closer to that end zone."

[*]

"And then we did a fake," Eric said excitedly. "He thought I handed off. Totally believed it. He was running after that guy –"

"- I'm glad you're enjoying this ranch league you organized, son," Eric's father interrupted him. Eric was a little frustrated that he wasn't listening to the details. "That shows some real organizational initiative on your part." Well, at least he got some praise out of the man. "I want to talk to you about something else though."

Eric leaned against the kitchen wall, next to the phone, and reached over to toy with the handle of the old-fashioned manual coffee bean grinder on Grandpa's hutch. It was never good when either an adult or a girl wanted to "talk to you about something."

"Tami was over here for dinner the other night, three days or so ago, and she seemed a bit upset. Bonnie said she'd recently gotten a letter from you. Did you write something that might upset her?"

"What? No! What would I have said?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

Eric spun the handle of the grinder in a rough circle. "We just…write about our future plans. Ask each other stupid questions about school and hobbies and books and TV and stuff. That's  _all._ "

"So nothing really personal then?"

Eric was silent.

"You haven't said anything suggestive – "

"- No! Jesus, Dad, she's my pen pal. Because you  _made_  me be her pen pal! So  _you_  could be suggestive with her  _aunt_."

"That is  _not_  why I asked you to write her. And please don't use the Lord's name in vain."

"Dad, did you even go to church last Sunday?"

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"Or the week before? Without Mom around to make you, do you even go?"

More silence.

"I didn't think so." Eric wrapped the cord of the phone around his finger and realized that he wasn't really mad at his father. He was mad at himself. He wished he could take back that question about Tami's virginity. He shouldn't have let her know that he'd figured it out. The idea of Tami being upset bothered him a lot more deeply than he could have imagined it would.

"Maybe it was something else that upset her," his father said in a tone of forced calm, "and she just happened to be reading your letter about that time."

"Probably," Eric said.

"Okay then." His father sounded like he didn't believe Eric one wit but that he had decided to drop the subject anyway. "So tell me a bit more about your last game. Is Billy still your best linebacker?"

"Billy's quarterback on the other team. So we did this fake, right? And then…"

[*]

Eric saw the last envelope handed out and looked away from Grandpa Maddox's sympathetic eyes when there was nothing for him.

He thundered out the kitchen door and began walking. He didn't suppose he'd be reading a letter from Tami during his siesta today either. Might as well get some fresh air instead. He breathed in deeply. The stench of manure made him cough.

Usually it took six or seven days between the time he put that little red flag up on the mailbox and the time he heard back.

But it had been eleven days since he'd mailed his letter to her.

Eleven days.

[*]

_March 19, 1983_

_Dear Tami,_

_Sorry if question number 4 upset you. You don't have to answer it. Just ignore it. Pretend I never asked it._

_Please write back._

_I like reading your letters. You're funny and interesting and it gets boring on this ranch sometimes._

_Sincerely,_

_Eric_


	25. Chapter 25

Tami read the letter from Eric again, the shortest he'd ever written. She read the line, "I like reading your letters" four times and the line "You're funny and interesting" six times, and the last of the anger she'd felt at him calling her out on her regret finally dissipated. The embarrassment lingered.

A beloved, late uncle had once told her, "When you've embarrassed yourself in front of someone, you've got nothing left to lose. At that point, you might as well just go all out and be yourself." She hadn't followed that advice in Houston, but maybe she would now.

Tami pulled out a sheet of paper from her three-ring binder for English and began to write.

_March 23, 1983_

_Dear Eric,_

_Fine. I'll answer number 4._

_He was a pretty big asshole, but I was an even BIGGER idiot. I was 15. He was 17. I was pissed off at my dad for leaving, and I just wanted to believe some guy LIKED me. So even though I barely knew him, I got buzzed and let him have sex with me in the upstairs bedroom at some loud party. The sheets smelled like old lady powder and it didn't feel very good but I pretended it did._

_He left and went back to the party after. So I went to the bathroom and straightened myself up, tried to convince myself it had been fun, and went down to find him. He wasn't there anymore. Even so, I told myself I'd see him in school on Monday and he'd be my boyfriend. But on Monday he acted like he didn't even KNOW me. Somehow though it seemed like everyone knew we'd had sex, and suddenly I was a slut. HE wasn't a slut of course. But I was._

_After that I was miserable, and my grades went into the toilet. I started upsetting my mom in more ways than I count. So she finally sent me to live with my Aunt Bonnie._ _I don't think she really hoped Aunt Bonnie would "straighten me out." She thinks Aunt Bonnie is too soft and that she'd make a horrible mother. I think my mom just couldn't handle me anymore._ _I don't really want to see her Easter weekend. I don't want to have to pretend we're some happy family. I want to see my little sister, but I don't really want to see my mom._

_And I don't want to move back home for my senior year either. My mom just got offered a job that would start this summer. It's 12-hour shifts, four days a week in a town with a crap high school, even worse than my old high school. So Mom doesn't want to take the job, even though it's probably good for her. This weekend, Aunt Bonnie's going to tell her that she should. She's going to offer to let me and Shelley both live with her during the school year next year, and then we can live with my mom during the summer and school breaks. That way we'll both get to go to good schools and my mom won't be so stressed out._

_I HOPE she says yes. I PRAY she says yes._

_I'm trusting you never to tell anyone any of this. I guess after all this time I just had to get it out. You better not judge me, because I bet you've probably had plenty of one night stands yourself._

-  _Tami_

[*]

_March 25, 1983_

_Dear Tami,_

_I hope you don't think I'm like that guy who took your virginity. I haven't exactly been the perfect gentleman with girls this past year, but I would never pretend I didn't know someone the next day. I'd certainly never just leave her all alone at a party like that and take off._ _I haven't had as much sex as you seem to think. I've fooled around in different ways with a bunch of girls, but, honestly? I've only had s-e-x sex with two, and one was my steady girl. They all seemed to like whatever we did together and they all wanted to do it and I didn't make them think I wanted to be their boyfriend, at least that's what I thought anyway. But maybe some of them were like you. Maybe they were just convincing themselves they wanted to do it. Maybe I should have tried harder to find out if they REALLY wanted to first, but I didn't._

_I hope I didn't hurt anyone too bad. But if you girls don't really want to do something, you should just NOT do it._ _Eh. Look who's talking. I didn't want to go to half those parties and I still did. I'm not really a party guy. I'm not saying I didn't like the fooling around part. I'm not gonna lie. It felt good, but I'd rather do all that someplace quiet with a girl I like a whole lot._ _But sometimes you do things to fit in, to feel wanted and liked when the people who are supposed to love you aren't around to love you anymore – like my girlfriend wasn't and my mom wasn't. Like your dad wasn't._ _Isn't it weird that that's maybe when you feel the most alone? When you're trying your hardest to feel like you belong?_

_Write back. Answer the other letter. Let's have fun letters again. This shit is too heavy._

_\- Eric_

[*]

_March 28,_

_Dear Eric,_

_You're right. We both got pretty dark for a while there. But I'm glad you wrote what you did, because I can relate and it makes me feel a whole lot less embarrassed about all the stuff I shared with you. I think we're both kind of sworn to secrecy now because we both have so much dirt on each other. That feels safer somehow._

_Now for the letter I never answered:_

_First off, your ex-steady-girlfriend is a total bitch and she didn't deserve you. My God! Your mom died! She should have been there for you and not have expected you to be a barrel of fun._

_No, you certainly do not seem at all shy to me in these letters. If you really are, this could be interesting when we meet. Promise you'll try to make eye contact and you won't have to get buzzed just to talk to me about the weather._

_What was all that stuff about the dog and loyalty and that question about dating someone when you have a vague sense they're lying to you? Are you trying to tell me something? I'm starting to feel like you are. Does it have to do with Mo? Because something weird happened with him._

_He went to be with his dad in Grapevine this weekend, like he usually does. Thursday I asked if maybe I could go with him. I met his mom already, and I'd kind of like to meet his dad. I thought it would be fun for us to take that old train from Grapevine to Fort Worth and see the long-horn cattle herded through the street and all that. I've never done it. But he was totally weird about it – had six excuses why I couldn't go and half of them didn't make sense. So I feel like he's hiding something._

_Does he have another girl in Grapevine? Is that what you've been trying to say? You probably won't_ _answer that, because he's your brother in arms or some such nonsense. So I'll just find out myself._ _If he DOES, I will dump his ass._

_By the time you get this, you'll be leaving the ranch for Spring Break, and we'll soon be seeing each other in person, so I guess I can save my four questions for when we meet and ask them in person._ _Want to bet your father's going to cook brisket on Tuesday and make his "best BBQ sauce in North Texas" and make us all four eat together? When he does, count how many times he looks at my aunt's cowgirl boots. I'll bet you $5 it's at least seven._

_Sincerely,_

_Tami_


	26. Chapter 26

Coach Taylor picked Eric up at Second Chances Ranch at noon on Good Friday, a day after he'd read Tami's most recent letter. Eric had been nervous about the long drive, certain his father would find fault with him about something, but it had turned out to be uneventful. His father seemed more relaxed than he had most of this past year, and although the conversation was minimal, the silences were not unpleasant. They listened to a lot of sports radio, an hour of classical music Coach Taylor forced upon his son, and an hour of 80s rock and roll Eric forced upon him.

"I guarantee you no one will be listening to this crap in two hundred years," his father told him.

They pulled into the carport of the Taylor house at 11 PM that night, after wrestling with some unexpected weekend traffic, and Eric went straight to bed. He was tired, but it felt strange not having a roommate. He'd adjusted to the sound of Billy and Dante's banter, which had so often lulled him to sleep.

Accustomed to waking with the rooster, Eric rolled out of bed early on Saturday morning, even though his father was actually sleeping rather than knocking on his door. to urge him to run plays. When had his father started sleeping-in?

Eric went for a jog as the sun was rising and ran past the small house next door, where he knew Tami lived. They'd left one kitchen light on, and a radio turned up loud, as though that might fool a robber while they were gone for Easter, even though there was no car in the carport. He hoped her weekend with her mother was going well, and that her aunt had talked Tami's mom into letting Tami stay at Bowie High. He also hoped she'd found her answer to her question about Mo on her own, because he thought she deserved better. Eric  _wanted_  better for her, anyway. She'd been through a lot this past year. Tami could use a little happiness in her life, and a guy who really respected her.

In the late afternoon, his father took him to the Bowie Boar's stadium to run plays. Five other players happened to show up, planning to mess around on the field and maybe throw some beer cans at the scoreboard, but when they saw Coach Taylor, they hid their six pack under the bleachers and waved innocently. Eric was sure his father must have seen, but he pretended not to. Instead he shouted, "Impromptu practice!"

"Awww!" Mo McArnold called back. "Spring training doesn't start until Monday! Is that even legal?"

"We're gonna have us a good time today!" Coach Taylor yelled. And then he ran them especially hard.

The sun had risen high in the sky and beat down with 88 degrees of heat. Exhausted and sweating, they all sat down on a rare, shady spot on the bleachers and guzzled water while Eric's father went into his office for some folders. Eric tried to remember the name of the guy sitting to his left, who had joined the team after he went away to the ranch. Mo McArnold he knew, of course. Next to Mo was a linebacker named Jimmy, the center, Mike, and a tight end named Sanchez. (Well, that was his last name. Eric had never actually learned his first name).

"So you're convalescing to join us for spring training are you?" Jimmy asked. Jimmy liked to work big words into every conversation to prove he wasn't a dumb jock. The problem was that he didn't know what those words meant, and he often used them incorrectly.

"I think you mean condescending," Mike said. "And we ought to be glad Eric's coming back."

"Hey, what am I?" Mo asked. "Chopped liver?"

"You've done better than I expected," Mike admitted.

"But we need Eric if we're going to make it to state next year," Sanchez said. "When Coach pulled him off the team last season…" He whistled and pointed straight down.

"How do you know Coach isn't going to keep  _me_  at first string?" Mo asked.

Sanchez, Jimmy, and Mike laughed. Eric repressed his instinct to do so.

"Well I guess for your sake he ought to make you first string," Mo said. "You're not going to have anything better to do. Because your social life…" He made a poof sound and mimicked an explosion by opening and closing his hand. "You're going to be out of the loop after an entire semester away. Half the girls you dated last year have steady guys now. The rest don't want another ride on the Eric Express. Me, on the other hand, I'm dating the hottest girl in the whole damn school."

"Tami?" Eric asked.

"Damn right, Tami."

So she hadn't broken up with him  _yet_ , anyway. He didn't think anything of Mo's claim that she was the hottest girl in the school.  _Every guy_  claimed his girlfriend was the hottest. You had to.

Mo leaned forward on the bench and peered at Eric. "Hear you two have been writing each other for her English assignment. You better not be putting the moves on her, Taylor. Better not be quoting any Shakespeare."

Eric didn't rise to the bait. "We hardly say anything to each other," he lied. "She just has to show the teacher the cancelled envelopes with the address to prove she's doing it. We write each other like three lines every time."

"Eric is not a gargantuous guy," Jimmy said.

"I think you mean gregarious," Mike told him.

"Mo, man, have you even managed to get a first down with Tami yet?" Sanchez asked.

"The Mo Machine has entered the end zone many a time, Mikey. And she was cheering like it was the Superbowl."

Mike sputtered out his water. "That's not what Kimberley said she said."

"Why would you know what Kimberley said she said?" Mo asked.

"Because Kimberly and I  _have_  actually entered the end zone. Well…almost. Soon. Maybe during summer break."

Mo laughed. "You crack me up, Mikey." He looked at Eric. "I'll I'm saying is, you may be the star of this team next season, but you're looking at the King of the Homecoming court right here." He pointed to himself. "And Tami's gonna be the Queen."

"The King and Queen don't have to be dating, you know," Mike said. "And last year they elected that guy with the cleft lip."

"They never do a charity vote two years in a row," Mo insisted.

"Oh shit," Sanchez muttered. "Coach Drill Sargent is back on the field."

Looking at a three-ring-binder of some kind, Coach Taylor strolled toward the bleachers.

"Let's wait until he actually calls us out there," Mike said.

"Did you know your dad is dating my girlfriend's aunt?" Mo asked Eric.

"Yeah, I know," Eric said, wishing Mo would shut up about Tami.

"She is h-o-t HOT!" Mo exclaimed.

"So you've mentioned," Eric said.

"I meant the aunt. Tami's hot, of course, but so's her aunt."

"Eww," Eric said. "She's thrity-six or something, man."

"It doesn't matter what age you are. You can still have, you know…" Mo cupped his hands in front his chest to indicate a pair of sizable breasts. "Bet your dad's enjoying those."

"Jesus, man," Eric muttered. "Shut up."

"I wonder if your old man's made into the end zone."

"I said shut up!" Eric yelled.

Coach Taylor looked up from his binder and lowered his coach's cap slightly to block the sun. "You ladies done with your afternoon tea?" He shouted. "Then get the hell back on the field!"

[*]

It was weird sitting through Easter Sunday service without his mother by his side to poke him in the shoulder when he was too slow to stand or kneel. They hadn't gone last year. Eric wasn't sure why, but he thought it was probably that his father couldn't tolerate all the exaggerated sympathy he would have had to face, with the loss of his wife still fresh. Now that more than a year had past, however, the church ladies mentioned Ivy Taylor not at all, which was even worse, in a way.

After the service, Coach Taylor and Eric sat on the low brick wall just outside the church, eating angel cake, drinking coffee, and watching the kids practically tackle each other in their mad hunt for Easter eggs. Little old church ladies swooped down upon them like locusts, asking Coach Taylor if he'd enjoyed the service, if he was ready for spring training, if he was going on any vacations this summer and asking Eric where he'd been, when he was coming back, and if he'd be leading the Bowie Boars to the State Championship his senior year.

"I'm actually repeating my junior year next year," Eric said, again and again, to everyone who asked that. Every time those words were greeted with a look of surprise, curiosity, and the faintest glint of condemnation. He felt like a complete failure by the time the last lady was gone.

After the old ladies stopped by, the middle-aged ones did, all to flirt with his father and ask if he was planning to start coming to church more regularly now. Most were subtle, but one hinted obviously enough about the possibility of a date that Eric's father had to hint just as obviously that he was already seeing someone.

Eric and his father had Easter brunch together at a semi-fancy restaurant where for some bizarre reason his father ordered two mimosas. He'd never seen his father drink anything but wine or beer. He wondered if he drank mimosas with Tami's aunt. The food was good, but Eric wasn't very hungry. It all felt so weird, even worse than that first Easter had, when neighbors kept dropping by with desserts, to see how they were "managing the holiday without the Mrs." and to remind them that "the dead shall arise." Easter shouldn't involve just two people, poking around on fancy plates and trying to make casual conversation with each other.

It was better once they were home. They turned on a baseball game in the living room. Dad popped the cap off a beer, Eric opened a Coke, and they talked about all the things that made football a much better sport.

During one of the long commercials, Eric said, "Dad, maybe I shouldn't repeat my junior year. Maybe….maybe I finish out my sentence at the ranch." A program of some kind – and Grandpa's qualified – had been mandated by the judge to avoid prison time for the DUI. "And then I go to summer school to catch up. I start my senior year in the fall. I just take the hit from the bad grades I got the last two semesters. My GPA isn't  _terrible_ , when you average it all out, and if I do well my senior year…it'll be okay. I'm going to get into college on football anyway, not academics. And I'll do okay on my S.A.T's. You won't hear my name called for Honor Society at graduation, but is that so bad?"

"You can't make up all your junior year requirements in summer school."

"No, but I can make up two. And then my senior year, I just don't take any fun electives. I take my academic requirements instead."

"That's going to be a heavy course load. And you have to at least take Athletics if you're going to be in football."

"Yeah, I will. But I don't have to take Public Speaking or Journalism. I can do it. I really can."

Eric's father leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Wouldn't mind having you on my team for two more years."

"Ah. I see."

"And trying to juggle both summer school and summer training?" His father asked. "A heavy course load and football?"

"So it's about winning."

"It's about you maximizing your potential without overextending yourself."

"I don't want to turn 19 during my senior year, Dad."

"Plenty of boys do."

This is where Eric would usually become sullen and tell his father that he only cared about his own job. But he'd been thinking about a lot of things in the quiet of his grandfather's ranch, and he'd gradually come to realize that his father was just a human being shouldering his own heavy basket of worries. "Think about it. Please. I'd like to graduate on schedule. And I'll buckle down. No parties. Well, except the ones that I kind of  _have_  to go to as part of the team. Absolutely no drinking. I won't even date."

His father laughed around the neck of the beer bottle that was in his mouth. He pulled it out with a sloop.

"I  _won't_. There's no one I even  _want_  to date, anyway."

"Well I'm sure that will change sometime in the next year."

"Please, Dad. Just think about it."

He expected his father to shoot him down immediately again, but instead, he said, "Okay. I'll think about it. Convince me you're serious. Do a great job at spring training next week. Do some self-study while you're at your grandfather's ranch – more than he asks you to. And then we'll discuss it again in May."

Eric nodded. "What am I supposed to do while you're at work this week when I'm not at spring training? Do I come home?"

"No. You'll help me in the office. I'll put you to work." He took another swig of his beer. "Oh, and I've invited Bonnie and her niece for dinner on Tuesday. Be on your best behavior. I like this woman."

"Yes, sir."


	27. Chapter 27

There was no school on Easter Monday, but there was spring training. Eric hoped to fall naturally back into the old routine and into the comradery of his team, but he felt like a bit of an outsider. His teammates kept turning to Mo for leadership instead of to him, and Eric didn't run the plays quite as well as he had last season. Despite playing in the ranch league he'd created, he was a bit rusty. He could tell his father was disappointed, though he didn't yell at Eric any more than yelled at anyone else. By the end of the three-hour session, however, things were beginning to fall back into place. Still, Eric's father had not officially stated that Eric was going to be first string next season, and he was making Mo run all the same plays.

After the rest of the players had gone home, Eric stayed to help his dad at the office. His father made him make several phone calls to suppliers to get estimates for equipment for the baseball team. Being an Athletic Director seemed so boring. "I might consider being a high school football coach," he told his dad, "but I will  _never_  take a pencil-pushing job like this."

"Coaching alone isn't going to pay the bills, son. You'll either take a pencil-pushing job like this and suck it up like a man, or you'll have to teach full-time. I can't teach because I never got my B.A., so I do this. But hopefully you'll spend a few years in the NFL first, bank half your salary, and then you won't have to worry about how to live on a coach's pay. You can do whatever you like."

"Yeah, hopefully," Eric said. He hated it every time his father mentioned the NFL. He wanted to play professional football, of course, but it was a great weight on his shoulders, that expectation that he  _would_. "How come you never made it to the NFL? Or the AFL?"

His father looked up from the file on his desk. "I lost my scholarship. Dropped out of college after my first semester. Went to work on the ranch. You know all that."

"Yeah, guess I did." Eric  _did_  know all that, but he'd wanted to remind his father that there were all sorts of reasons he might fail to become a professional football player.

[*]

When they returned home and Eric got out of the truck and began walking around it toward the kitchen door, he spied a beautiful, strawberry blonde at the mailbox on the street. Her legs were long and slender; she had curves in all the right places, and her breasts were pert as they pressed against her tight, burgandy t-shirt. He walked straight into one of the posts of the carport. Groaning, he stumbled back and rubbed his forehead.

His father chuckled. "That was like something straight out of the Three Stooges." He nodded toward the mailbox. "Well, why don't you go introduce yourself to Tami?"

"That's...that's Tami?"

"The girl you've been writing, yes. Introduce yourself, like a good neighbor." His father disappeared through the kitchen door.

Eric swallowed. He wasn't sure he  _wanted_  to introduce himself. This girl knew so much about him.  _Too much_  about him. What the hell had been thinking, writing all of that personal stuff? And he was still a little jarred by how damn pretty she was.

He was thinking of scurrying inside when she looked up from the mail in her hands, caught sight of him, and shouted, "Are you Eric?"

Eric opened his mouth, but his brain didn't fully connect with it. Finally, he said, "I Eric." The construction didn't sound right to his ears. Something was missing.

" _You Eric_?" she asked, and laughed, and began walking toward him.

Quickly, he combed his hair with his fingers and then looked down to make sure his fly was zipped. When he looked up, she was standing right in front of him. Jesus. She had pretty  _eyes_ , too. "Hey," he said. "Tami."

She smiled. "It's nice to finally meet you in person." Her hands were still full of mail, so he wasn't sure if he should try shaking one.

Eric put his hands in his back pockets to avoid the issue altogether. It was a few seconds before he realized he hadn't said anything back. Tami looked down at the pile of mail, as if she was just as nervous as he was. "Yeah," he managed. "You, too. Nice to uh…meet you…in the flesh." He winced. Had that sounded sexually suggestive? In the flesh? It was just an expression, right? In the flesh. It didn't mean anything except "in person." In the flesh. Flesh. She had soft-looking skin. He wondered what it would feel like to touch it. To touch her flesh. In the flesh.

"So…how was the drive up from the ranch?" she asked.

"Okay."

"When did you get in?"

"Friday night."

"Did you have spring training today, or does that start tomorrow?"

"Spring training," he repeated.

"Yeah, did you have it today?"

"Yes. Yes. Today. Spring training."

"God, you  _are_  shy," she said. She chuckled. "I really never would have guessed it."

He might be shy, but he wasn't normally this inarticulate.  _Speak_ , he willed himself.  _Speak. Speak. Speak_. "So, did you dump Mo yet?" Oh. That wasn't what he'd wanted to say.

Tami swallowed and looked off the side of the carport at a nearby oak tree. "Not yet, no," she said. She looked back at him. "I take it you got my last letter before you left?"

"Uh…yeah."

"And?"

"And…what?"

"And," she said, putting all of the mail in one hand and dropping it to her side, "Is my guess right? Does Mo have another girl in Grapevine?"

"I…uh…Mo…the thing is…the guys…I don't…"

"Nevermind. I'm going to break up with him even if he doesn't. The chemistry just isn't there. He's cute. He's fun. But…I don't know. It just isn't there."

"How do you know if it's there?" Eric asked.

"You just know," Tami said.

"Don't tell him I told you – "

"-Don't worry. I know you don't want to turn your team against you. And you  _didn't_  tell me.  _Anything_."

"You can do better."

"I don't know about that. But my aunt tells me being alone is better than being with someone who's not a good match for you. She should know. She's broken up with at least eight guys in the past ten years."

"Really?" asked Eric, suddenly forgetting his nervousness. "So you think she's going to up and dump my dad, too? Soon?"

"I don't know," Tami said. "She seems to like him so far. Do you  _want_  her to dump him?"

"No. Why would I want that?"

"I got the impression you didn't like him dating."

Eric shrugged. "He seems…happier. More relaxed. He's giving me a hell of a lot less grief, that's for sure."

Tami smiled. "Well, I need to be getting back home. I need to unpack from my trip to Houston, and then I'm supposed to go over to my friend Kimberley's house to study for a test. We have a test on Tuesday, right after the break! Unbelievable."

"Mr. Grossman?"

"Yeah."

"He loves to do that," Eric said.

"Well, I guess I'll see you at dinner Tuesday night?"

Eric nodded. As she was walking away, he called after her, "Hey! What did your mom say? About staying with your aunt?"

Tami turned. "She said I could. I'll stay for the rest of the year, go live with my mom for the summer, and then come back next year with Shelley, too. That's my little sister."

"I know." He nodded. "Good. Good. I mean…good for you. That's what you wanted, right?"

She smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, it is." Tami waved to him and then headed back to her house.

Eric turned to go inside, and this time he walked right into the side of the pick-up. He took a step back, eased around it, and went inside. His father was standing at the kitchen counter, across from the window that looked out on the carport. He smirked. "You need some ice for that head?"

Eric rubbed his forehead. "I might."

"I wasn't talking about  _that_  one." He jerked open the fridge, pulled out a cold pack he used for sports-related bruises, and tossed it at Eric, who caught it reflexively, despite his shock at his father's quip. " _Cool off,_  son," he said in a tone of voice that was suddenly much less amused. "And be warned - you better  _behave_  yourself with that girl. She's my girlfriend's niece." Eric's father grabbed his play book off the counter and vanished through the open doorway of the kitchen.


End file.
